Tournament Blackheart

Classic Fighting Games Marvel VS Capcom 2
41

In order? Hmmm. Well, keep in mind that this is after yesterday and I’m suddenly all freshly happy on other counts in this game, but here’s where I’m at right now.

  1. Sent-Y/Cable/BH

Yeah, I’m running partly off the rush of having almost won a tournament with this as the staple team yesterday, but there really aren’t very many weaknesses with this team. BH has almost all the tools he has with Watts when he’s on point, Sentinel starting with BH in back lets Sentinel abuse BH’s assist in every way imaginable, and Cable’s presence in the middle cuts off a lot of the weaknesses against Cable. In the tournament yesterday BH’s main action on point (when the team was successful) was to come out of the back as a closer when I had the lead against a lone opposing character like Storm or Psylocke with time running out. Whatever else BH is or isn’t good at, he is Mariano Rivera and Jonathan Papelbon wrapped up in one nightmare package with dreadlocks on top in this role, and it’s one he’s much more free to play when he hasn’t had much point responsibility earlier in the game. Between that and the more liberal use of his assist by the other two early on, particularly by Sentinel starting out, this team is a lot more vicious than I used to think. Sentinel spamming laser beams and inferno assists from full screen on Magneto/Storm teams and flying back to put the frying pan on them when they go over the top is almost unfair, Cable actually does more damage as a countercall and kicks characters off the screen longer in most cases than Commando, and Sent/BH uncombos will absolutely RUIN Psylocke.

1-A. BH/Sent/Commando (or Cammy, or Guile)

Depending on whether you’d rather have BH with Sent/Commando or Sent with Cable/BH as an assist scheme, Watts is still arguably a better anti-rush specialist, and playing the team in Sent/BH/Commando order is probably better than Sent/Cable/BH against Santhrax. The only time I used Watts in the tournament yesterday was in this latter role. Fierce dark thunder XX HOD is an absolutely awesome tool against Sentinel in the midgame in this fight, although it’s also usable with Sent/Cable/BH too.

It is possible that I will eventually swap these two back around, but Sent having freer use of BH’s assist early on because he has Cable as another point option is more powerful than you’d think, and Watts falls prey to snapback tactics a lot more than I’d like, while people tend to respect my BH enough that they don’t see a real reason to try snapping Sentinel out. However, Watts is probably still a bit better against Santhrax overall, which is not going to be a terribly rare matchup.

  1. BH/Cable/Cyclops

It tends to be a bit of a slippery slope team in both directions. If you get ahead, you’ll win by lots. If you fall behind, you’ve got no prayer.

  1. Cable/BH/Commando

I used to use this team as a counter against Team Scrub back in the NW. When my Cable was in practice I used to get OCVs regularly in that matchup with it, but it’s a team you definitely better have nerves of steel and a very good Cable to play. If you do, I find that people either tend to know how to fight this team (regardless of what they’re using) or they don’t. This team is absolutely better using Cable in front, whereas with Cyclops it’s better to start BH most times; as a result I list them as different teams because they’re not nearly as similar in the way they play as you’d think.

  1. BH/Doom/Commando (maybe Cyclops instead of Commando)

Deceptively scary zone-and-chip team. If I could use Doom better with Commando – at least well enough to hold his own with a lead – I would absolutely use this team in tournaments. Find me a way for Doom to defend himself adequately against the likes of Storm/Sentinel and Sentinel/Commando in later games and I would move it ahead of both Cable/AAA variants. BH with Doom and Commando behind him is just that disgusting. Commando lets BH zone people into the corner by keeping people from going over the top of him, and once he gets them there and puts Doom’s rocks to them with inferno/HOD, it does about twice as much chip damage as Strider/Doom per meter. I could be talked into believing that Cyclops is better for the team going forward after BH is off point, but I still think Commando is better overall.

The order below here is about the cut-off of what I’d actually ever consider using in tournaments myself. Some of the Storm teams might deserve more credit than I’m giving them, and the rest of this order might not be too exact.

  1. BH/Storm/Sentinel

I haven’t yet figured out a good assist scheme for this team that makes me happy with it, and it probably doesn’t help that my Storm leaves a lot to be desired. I don’t think it would matter much against Sentinel/Commando though.

  1. BH/Cable/Doom

Meter conflicts between BH and Cable, but it works as a BH/Doom/Commando variant where you’ve got Cable in the middle instead. It’s a lot less powerful for BH in the end though, and Cable/Doom isn’t nearly what it used to be – i.e. the team’s a bit less than the sum of its parts. However, it works well enough that it merits mention.

  1. BH/Strider/Doom

Has Cyclops issues, but BH is a really good assist for Strider and doesn’t need the meter with Doom around. May have to take to the air more against rush teams.

  1. BH/Storm/Cyclops

Ghetto and ugly, but Storm/BH is better than you’d think. Both of them get enough mileage out of Cyclops and BH/Storm DHCs are damaging enough that it’s not entirely useless.

  1. Magneto/BH/Cyclops (or Sonson)

Okay, this team is gross, yes, but I’ve seen two different Seattle players get surprising mileage out of it. Sonson is a better AAA for BH and Magneto than you’d think, and you can dig up footage of Sean “PsiANyd” Graham in Seattle using that.

I stayed away from BH/Sent/Tron because I’m just not at all sold on that team. Tron is horrible for trying to combo with BH anywhere other than with the opponent’s feet rooted to the ground. It could theoretically be a major pain with j. fierce demons in ways similar to Preppy’s mega busters with Mega Man, but not sold on that team at all. It’s Sentinel’s team all the way, and even a guy like Jaminis (who uses it a lot) visibly wilts after Sentinel is gone.

42

Where would Sentinel, Blackheart, Doom in it’s best order rank in all of this?

Nearly winning a tourney with the first team? WOW!!!. Was it recorded? Will we get to see the matches?

43

Sent/Doom/BH in various orders was actually my very first Sent/BH team in the early days. Just as I have a certain reluctance to play Magneto/Storm now, I did with Cable back then, and Sent/Doom/BH was kind of “my” way of doing things. However, I eventually learned painfully that basically any one of Spiral, Cable, or Sentinel just utterly murder the team. Once Spiral gets going the team literally has no way of really stopping her or even slowing her down other than pushblocking and praying. The team has a horrible time chasing down Cable and did even then, and it’s that much worse trying to defend against a good Sentinel. I also don’t remember if Mag/BH/Cyclops or BH/Cable/Cyclops in 3pwood’s hands showed up or not before I abandoned the team, but it’d be a horrible matchup there too.

I used Sent/Cable/BH as Plan A throughout the tournament, yes. Somebody was there with a mini camera, so I don’t know if the videos will go up or not. I don’t know when the camera guy left, he may have gotten only the winners’ bracket match against Crizzle and might’ve gotten the one against tharimrattler. I’m not sure if he was still around by the losers’ final with Crizzle. I went away from Sent/Cable/BH more against Tinh after the first game of the winners’ final, because Tinh’s a Santhrax-centric player, so I used more Scrub and a little Watts against him as counterteams. On the other hand, if they did get those on tape then you’ll see plenty of my Cable too. I was focused enough on the games by that point that I wasn’t even sure if the guy with the camera stayed throughout. Would be neat if they did get those, because they were pretty good matches.

44

nice job, Stilt.

The thing I noticed about that team is that your Cable really has to be on point to overcome teams with AAA. But yea, the number of traps on that team is pretty sick (Sent/Bh-b, cable/bh-b, cable/sent-g, and bh/cable-b makes a ghetto bh/cyc-b) and pretty damn annoying.

Your cable must be pretty good.

45

on the mags/BH/cyke team. there’s an OG player from MTL canada that basically destroyed all the competition back in teh day. He’s pretty much retired at this point. But check out Samnang.

46

Yeah, my Cable’s pretty good when I’ve actually got it in practice. The team does take a lot of knowledge about how to play all three characters, but if you’ve got that you’re in pretty good shape. About the only top tier matchup I’m all that nervous about having Cable/Sentinel/BH up against is maybe Sent/Commando. That one I’ll probably make a point of using BH on point against, once I do that there’s not much reason any more to use Watts as a counterteam.

I watched a few of Samnang’s matches from the last couple or three years on Youtube. I’m not sure how anybody has BH’s assist on a team and then just… doesn’t use it. In fact, both Magneto and BH’s assists can be of considerable value to each other. I mean, really… who’s going to run away from Magneto, ever, with BH’s assist behind him? And who’s going to even come close to BH with Magneto’s assist behind him? I just… don’t get it. Magneto’s assist would set up inferno/HOD chip very well (it would probably be timed very nicely to cover the gap between blocked inferno and blocked HOD, and would push them back into the best areas where the most demons come out), and BH’s assist could probably relatively easily be comboed off of air-to-air, given that I fairly regularly air combo with Sentinel off of it, who’s got way less air mobility than Magneto does. But I literally never saw him call Magneto with BH on point, and the only time he called BH with Mags on point was in a corner unmashable tempest combo. I mean, I don’t think Mag/BH/Cyclops is the new MSP or anything, but… so much wasted potential.

47

yea i said also on the first page i believe that thats pretty much the team i choose too, same with the possibly cyke of commando but i find myself usin commando more often then cyke for some reasons and also pends on who u face as well. but they are a pain to fight against long as u know how to usem

48

hey guys, sorry i have been MIA for a while now. Anyway, i going to admit that i am a big sell out!!! I have been preaching for several years now, how much i hated magneto. Then now days i am using that bastard every time i play.

That aside, i am getting used to a murderous team MAgs/Blackheart/Sentinel. If people do not see the potential this team has just by looking at them, then stop playing the game!!!( i’am playing…LOL) But, seriously i am becoming an infinite crazy bastard, and i don’t care anymore about beating people using skill and a lot of wit.

49

Stilt, why don’t you fiddle with Mags, BH, Cyc and explore some of that lost potential. He was extremely rusty when you saw those matches, and a far cry from when he gave Justin Wong a scare at the Midwest Championships. [If Justin didn’t complain about the sticks and have Samnang decide to replay the match Justin just lost, Samnang would have won…]

Oh, and BTW, that unmashable tempest that he did with the BH assist? That’s mid-screen as well as corners. There are other things he does…

Tempest, wait, JD to change characters,
Combo, hypergrav, Tempest, Immediate DHC for Judgement day super [almost if not impossible to mash out, used as a kind of frame cancel…]

Here is something I like; you can continue the combo into a Tempest XX Armageddon and use the shards to guarantee the Armageddon hits. It will almost always kill the character.

50

Wait, you’re suggesting I should use Mag/BH/Cyclops? Magneto’s probably about the only good character I can’t play. I mean, just can’t play, outside of a few garbage combos and general things, but my Magneto seriously is really, really bad and not fit for tournaments against a competent opponent and probably never will be. I’m just… gonna forget you suggested that. :sweat:

51

I didn’t necessarily mean take it out to a tournament and try it there. In your case [and to a lesser degree mine too] that would be stupid. I mean testing it in casuals, and practice mode to see what you can find that might be fun to play with, and useful for yourself and everyone else.

You already have the brutal combo that I showed you, so that works as a start.

If you want to get a better Magneto, search the other forums. Start with learning the Launch, hp, ad df hp, hk, dlk, dhk combo, and the Rom. Once mastered, learn every unmashable assist combo. Then start tacking them onto the ends of your ROM infinite. My favorite of all, is double snap baits, and getting into the habit of just doing combos that can work on both characters so you can double snap. Then start working on basic resets. Then master guard breaking. Once you’re there, you’ll probably be good enough to be tournament worthy. You have enough good Magnetos around, so even if what I told you was not enough to help you, what they have to say being in where you are, will be.

My Magneto is horrible too, but that doesn’t stop me from fiddling with him. That only stops me from playing him in any serious matches. Sooner or later rest assured, I WILL use him regularly; possibly even in tourneys. But right now, I have to phase in Sentinel, and phase out BH SLIGHTLY. Not fully, just slightly. I like BH too much to abandon him like I did to Amingo, Megaman, Jin, and to a lesser degree, Hulk.

52

Okay, I’m honestly at a loss to explain this, but ultimately I don’t even really think it’s worth the effort to learn how to play Magneto at that level. There just isn’t enough he does that other characters can’t do better that it’s worth it to me. Storm/Sentinel can kill someone from anywhere on the screen better. Strider is harder to escape from and can snap off of any random orbs hit just as well if I want to (and if I play a kill-the-assists game and save the meter for something besides nonstop chip damage, it’s potentially just as team ruining). And one of these days I’m going to need an Iron Man player to explain to me why, since Iron Man can air infinite into ground infinite just about as well as Magneto can, more Iron Man players don’t snap out for a critical assist character and kill that guy in the same way Magneto does, instead of trying to kill the point characters in selected order. I’d think Iron Man would be a lot more dangerous if people would do that.

Technically, Magneto has the best throws in the game, but the only thing that really, truly sets him apart is the snapback tactics. If you took the snapback alone out of the game, I am not convinced that Magneto is still a top eight character with what else he’d have left. Even with the snapback, any character that can punish attempts to get in well enough and just not get hit has a non-ridiculous chance of beating him. I mean, really… MegaMan/Tron? “Preppy vs See Jay, don’t watch this”??? Is a good Sentinel going to lose to that, ever? A good Cable? A good Strider? Storm if she doesn’t have Sentinel behind her, maybe, but with the DHC I seriously doubt it.

And that’s basically it. You have to have a truly transcendent Magneto before this stops happening to you, and even then all they have to do is get a better character to do it to you with (i.e. Storm/Sent). The execution bar to really have a well-rounded Magneto is just ridiculously high, and even then, it’s simply all about finding more ways to be dependent on actually landing a hit. In other words, he’s a faster Iron Man with a better snapback and arguably better guard break where you have to work eight times as hard just to get parity at a tournament level, and even then any decent Santhrax is still going to run away from you for fun. No thank you. :confused:

53

I agree. Those things are something I also want to ask about people’s Ironman myself.

Ha Ha Ha, I remember that. Too funny. I recently did something similar in casuals with Megaman, Sentinel, Capcom to a Santhrax player once. When he got close, I air blocked. If I was going to eat a typhoon, I’d block. Otherwise, I’d just stay on my half of the screen, and do jumping hp all day. Abort the Hailstorms and do 1/7 damage per shot each time without worries. My drones would stop his, they’d collide halfway across the screen meaning that Storm couldn’t get close enough on the ground to combo, and my buster shots would get through for free to abort the Hail. WAY too funny.

Not sure. Strongly doubt it.

Makes sense. Doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try, but to each his own.

Imagine if you also HAD a good Magneto to go along with all your other characters. Blackheart, Storm, Strider, Sentinel, Doom, and these are just the characters I’m sure you’re good with. The more characters you’re capable of using, the more fun the game gets.

You know what happens with Blackheart? The fact that Blackheart is so hard to rush down sometimes leads to Blackheart deliberately deviating from standard protocol and singlehandedly annihilating an entire team. I’ve actually done this before a couple times. I’m sure you have too. This is what happens when your opponent’s rushdown capabilities get destroyed without you losing yours.

Has your Blackheart ever wound up perfecting someone? That is really, really funny.

Okay, I’m getting back on topic. Sort of.

1]Was the tournament recorded that had all your rapes with Sentinel, BH, Cable?
-If so, do you know when the vids will be up
2]What is the best way In your opinion to use the Sentinel, BH, Cable
-Best strategies that you’re willing to share.
3]What are your favorite Sent-BH uncombo tactics.
-I’m new to this, but I did this one I invented once in a tournament to someone’s Capcom assist killing it from full health.
-Call BH, rocketpunch, hp, rocketpunch, HSF, dlk, Call BH, rocketpunch, standing hp, rocketpunch.
-I need a safer one.

Note: If there is anything too spicy, or that you want to keep secret that I asked for, PM me with it and I’ll keep it secret.

54

Well, they evidently only got a couple or three of the full matches from the 4/26 Fairfield tourney. The ones with tharimrattler and Crizzle from the winners’ bracket are up. It does not appear that they got the losers’ final with Crizzle on tape, which is a little disappointing to me, because I played better, didn’t lose any games to double snap or win any by random tag, and Crizzle used three different teams.

Stilt (W Sent/Cable/BH) v tharimrattler (Storm/Sent/Colossus) game 1 - [media=youtube]6frzLsXRN14[/media]
Stilt (W Sent/Cable/BH) v tharimrattler (Storm/Sent/Colossus) game 2 - [media=youtube]nAXGaUpyStI[/media]

Crizzle (W MSP) v Stilt (BH/Sent/Cable) game 1 - [media=youtube]RtGJv_cH2Wg[/media]
Crizzle (MSP) v Stilt (W Sent/Cable/BH) game 2 - [media=youtube]5l-caaZFngI[/media]
Crizzle (MSP) v Stilt (W Sent/Cable/BH) game 3 - [media=youtube]tyohVRgM3ww[/media]

55

Sentinel looked solid, cable was alright, blackheart was super jumping way too much without securing the ground against quick characters like psylocke.

56

sitlt, those were some very good matches. Also the matches were very informatives on the do’s and don’t of blackheart gameplay. However i am still not completly sold on BH/sentinel/cable. You see were i play at 90% of the players are MSP players, so what happend to you on the second match with Crizzle often happend to me when i played that team.

I do believe that the future Blackheart Metagame will be in a three playable character format. Meaning that the three characters are meant to be played instead of playing two character and the third is the designated assisst.

That said, here are three team tourney ready that are worthy to look at and spend your time on:

1.- Blackheart/cable/sentinel- A good all around team making a comback, but still has mayor
issues with MSP. So it all depends where you play at, are there
a lot of MSp or santhrax, etc. By the way Cable should always
be last in this team.

2.-Blackheart/storm/sentinel- An up-and-coming team, it is still relatively new to the scene but
an old concept. Basikcally is your old santhrax Gameplay except
now Blackheart is the new capcom. It solve the snap out
problem, however you loose some of the old santhrax speed.
But you gain a lot of flexibility and is very fun!!

3.- Ironman/Blackheart/cable- An insane team!! Ironman is simply crasy with blackheart as an
assisst. You also get the infinite ability from ironman with the
help of cable. And you also have Cable’s Counter AHVB. This
team is simply nuts!! But it is weak to MSP.

57

Well, here’s my take on some of this.

While it is generally a good idea not to get too super-jump happy with BH, to some degree you can’t really just stay to the ground either. There isn’t enough firepower in just j. fierce, and that’s ultimately your best low altitude defense. Mixing in some demons and pokes out of the air and making sure that you don’t leave a purely low altitude target is still a good idea, as long as you keep unpredictable enough about how you come back down to the ground. Crizzle is a fantastic player (Evo West final 8) so the fact that I manage not to get hit isn’t because I’m against sucky opposition in that video.

I don’t think BH in the middle on Sent/Cable/BH is a good idea at all. Ultimately, this just completely changes the team chemistry in so many ways, almost all of which are bad. You wind up calling BH a lot more conservatively because he’s your second character (or you just get him hurt a lot doing so, because there’s very few ways to really protect him that don’t involve burning meter), which forces you into more of a lockdown mode when you use him at all… which ultimately just doesn’t do you a whole lot of good. When you have more freedom to call him, as I did in the videos, this is a very good thing, Sentinel becomes a lot more powerful. The other element is, when you’re calling BH less you also cripple a lot of your zoning power, and since Cable is in back you wind up using him a lot more… which just isn’t enough to keep even a mediocre MSP that’s aggressive enough if they know the angles. You’re better off making them have to think about BH in the back of their mind as much as possible, which in turn can get them off their game badly. At some point, BH is just the better assist character for Sentinel, so put him in a position on the team where you can use him.

The other part is simply a matter of, if the worst does happen and you do wind up with Sentinel dead, would you rather have Cable/BH or BH/Cable left? From my own experience, I’d rather have Cable/BH. BH/Cable doesn’t have nearly enough power to really handle the rest of the game by itself, whereas for all its vulnerabilities, Cable/BH can still get you back into the game against an overaggressive player. Game 3 against Crizzle, this basically came out. Using BH more liberally while Sentinel was on point got Storm hurt a bunch before Sentinel ultimately died, and while it’s true that I won this game in large part due to Crizzle’s accidental tag, Sentinel’s damage to Storm prior to his dead and the fact that it was Cable and not BH on point at the time were the difference between this being merely a major hiccup and being a fatal, team-wrecking disaster.

So for all these reasons, I’m completely sold that Sent/Cable/BH is the best order to start Sentinel with. If you get Cable/BH rolled up anyway, so be it, but BH/Cable isn’t going to do that much better and won’t be able to exploit comeback opportunities even a third as well as Cable would on point. The options and possibilities are just better in every way.

I’ve played with BH/Storm/Sentinel and haven’t been able to find any way there I like this team against Sent/Commando. That’s a common enough matchup that I’m just… eh on this team.

58

any thoughts on spiral/BH/sonson
i play this and have seen vidness play this.
thoughts?

59

stilt, i am going to give that team another try, maybe now things will be a little better. But if anything i always been godd with BH/cable/Capcom or cyclops. Those two are my bread and butter teams, so if things start to go wrong i ususally rely on those two teams. Anyways, those were some good points you made earlier

60

well there was a tourney in CF NY, yesterday. MAn talk about heavy hitters, Smoothviper, Xcutioner, Infinite, among others. So yeah it was the shit! However i was to late to register since i didn’t know about the tourney. But i played afainst all f the big guns, and i must say that i didn’t do so bad. One thing thought Sentinel/cable/BH, didn’t do well at all even when i got myh shit together apparently their kung fu is stronger. However bh/cable/capcom did kick ass!!!

by the way is any of you blackheart players near NY, if so i invite you to come to the next tourney, it’ll be in two weeks.