Crouching against Tornado *now with in game demonstration*

*see last post for video information*

is probably one of the most underrated tactics in the game against Metaknight. (BTW Lambchops figured this out in a tourney match against me back in April)

Snake is a character with lots of good tools for fighting against Tornado, but even then Metaknight can do a lot of "gay" things to still get reward from using it. Even at the highest level I see a lot of snake players getting shield poked and sucked off the ground against Metaknight, and even if they can shield the whole thing, MK can use the lagless landing as a mixup to make it harder to punish, and if you dont punish he can tornado again against your diminished shield.

Crouching against tornado can completely alleviate this problem.

MKs tornado does the most damage to Snakes shield when you tornado at an angle against his shield (top left or top right). From here you can "bite" the shield by moving on and off it (which causes it to shrink faster - See M2K vs. Allah for details). MK can do a no lag landing if he lands on the ground from a certain height. This is going to keep most MK players at a certain height for fear of being easily punished on landing. If you crouch you can force them to either try and beat you in a landing mixup or retreat.

You can crawl in either direction to mix this up, and if you already have a grenade on the ground you can limit MKs ability to land somewhere safely.

Also you can shield instantly out of crouching, which seems to make crouching against Nado more useful.

This probably means you can powershield tornado more easily just by crouching and waiting for it to come into your shield range.

I feel this is so underdeveloped that I dont know how much it will make a difference/replace other tactics, but I feel that most snake players dont seem to use it or know about it.

*Links to matches are in next sentence lul.*

Also another tactic that Radix (A very good Snake from Orlando Florida) showed me that I havent seen anyone else do is reverse grenading when you are caught in Tornado. He did it against me a few times in these matches and I'm not sure exactly how it works but apparently you flick the opposite direction and grenade so that the grenade comes out behind you and lands inside the tornado (otherwise MK can drag you inside the tornado if you try dropping nades).

Trying to be the neighborhood friendly MK main (Im thinking about dropping him for snake).

Discuss.

I really like the reverse grenade trick, I think if we figure out how to do it and what parts of the tornado we can do it at it would help alot. Thanks!

moved ^ there.

so basically ur sayin tht when ur in the tornado u do a b reversed nade? just regularly?

Im not sure if it specifically has to be a reverse momentum nade or just a regular reverse nade but by the description I'm assuming a reverse momentum nade would definetly work if a regular one didnt.

Crouching is also very good against dair camping.

I'm assuming the B-reversed nade is done while Snake is falling, before getting caught in a 'nado.

no its actually when your in the nado, watch the matches he posted, Radix showed did it a few times in the vids.

Yumewomiteru said:

no its actually when your in the nado, watch the matches he posted, Radix showed did it a few times in the vids.

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Oh wow, I didn't even see those links. Time to watch and learn.

I can visualize most of this stuff working. These things seems a bit shallow and quirky at face value, but give it a minute to sink in, and you'll think, "****, that's clever". At least that's what happened to me :/

I vant tu see moar of you around here, RedHalberd, ya hear?

i think i can see how the reverse grenade works

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTXpmQhluOw

4:42 In this match if you're wondering displays the reverse nading out of tornado.

At high percents, If people could get this consistently, there would be many situations where MK players wouldn't be able to nado at all, as it might risk death.

Like I said, snakes metagame is extremely underdeveloped. I'm also looking into a few other ways to fight/trade with nado. When Mampam gets back home tomorrow I'll try and get some vids up.

A few things I noticed. Torando against Snake is a rather poor approach option in the first place. Snake could pull out a grenade at just about anytime and punish MK for using the Tornado in the first place. This is enough to deter heavy tornado usage. A smart MK should be using the tornado when you wouldn't be pulling a grenade. A common time is when Snake is recovering and decides to use air dodge instead of a grenade. Free Tornado time.

Because of this I feel that crouching wouldnt' be very useful unless you know MK is trying really hard to tornado you. This would seem to be a very useful anti-spam tactic if a MK is getting a little too tornado happy.

The grenade usage within a tornado I think is MUCH more important to the match up. If you can punish MK for everytime he uses the Tornado even if you get sucked up that is an automatic free 10%+ (depending upon decay) of damage everytime he uses the tornado. Sure, you might take damage along the way, but considering how much more quickly MK dies compared to Snake means that it would be in our benefit to nade in the tornado everytime.

RedHalberd, could you try to see if you can get Radix to tell you how he ends up doing the 'reverse grenade' while in the tornado?

Xeylode said:

A few things I noticed. Torando against Snake is a rather poor approach option in the first place. Snake could pull out a grenade at just about anytime and punish MK for using the Tornado in the first place. This is enough to deter heavy tornado usage. A smart MK should be using the tornado when you wouldn't be pulling a grenade. A common time is when Snake is recovering and decides to use air dodge instead of a grenade. Free Tornado time.

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That's called "theory craft". It doesnt work like that in an actual match.

RedHalberd, could you try to see if you can get Radix to tell you how he ends up doing the 'reverse grenade' while in the tornado?

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He said he did what I said he did. Flick control stick in opposite direction while nading. I'll ask him if he spams it or if he does it methodically though.

Interesting. Also, it should be noted snake is smaller in his shield out of crawl.

A few things I noticed. Torando against Snake is a rather poor approach option in the first place. Snake could pull out a grenade at just about anytime and punish MK for using the Tornado in the first place. This is enough to deter heavy tornado usage. A smart MK should be using the tornado when you wouldn't be pulling a grenade. A common time is when Snake is recovering and decides to use air dodge instead of a grenade. Free Tornado time.

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Actually simply pulling a nade isn't going to stop most MK's from tornadoing you, your head is exposed and if he has good control over it basically your whole front side is exposed as well after the initial animation, he can tornado you and suck you away from the grenade. The fact that you can utilt him out of it is more of a threat to using it as an approach than nades a lot of the time

Nic64 said:

Actually simply pulling a nade isn't going to stop most MK's from tornadoing you, your head is exposed and if he has good control over it basically your whole front side is exposed as well after the initial animation, he can tornado you and suck you away from the grenade. The fact that you can utilt him out of it is more of a threat to using it as an approach than nades a lot of the time

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Pulling a nade won't, but short tosses will. A method to use against MK is zoning. That is ultimately what I am getting at as to why the Tornado is typically not always the best approach. With Grenades being used a lot of the time the Tornado has a difficult time finding space to get through which is why Dair Camping is a more effective approach than the Tornado.

Edit: There is a lot of different scenairos you can think of an all, but all I really want to say is that Crouching isn't something that's going to become a sole counter to the tornado now. It's only useful in situational circumstances. Such as when MK is actually trying to keep the tornado above your head. If not, it's almost completely useless as you will have to shield anyway.

Yeah, I'm not saying that tornado is a good approach in this MU, it's not, I use it mostly for punishing and in situations where it's guaranteed, just saying that ONLY pulling a nade isn't going to stop it a lot of the time, and it takes another moment before you can toss it.

its 24 frames after snake presses b that is grenade becomes unable (like, you can shield or throw). if mks in front of you, presumably youd need to throw it into the tornado, which given his really slow throwing animation, is another 10 or so frames. mk really has all the time in the world here. and tornado can always be spaced to avoid hitting a grenade on the front. even in the air. holding a grenade with your bad facing mk shuts down tornado, but limits your options quite significantly.

would love to know how radix did that, just btw. if we could do it consistently, i think it would break the mu in our favor.

Xeylode said:

Torando against Snake is a rather poor approach option in the first place. Snake could pull out a grenade at just about anytime and punish MK for using the Tornado in the first place. This is enough to deter heavy tornado usage. A smart MK should be using the tornado when you wouldn't be pulling a grenade. A common time is when Snake is recovering and decides to use air dodge instead of a grenade. Free Tornado time.

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Wait, you said that throwing a nade won't work much against Snake before

Xeylode said:

Edit: There is a lot of different scenairos you can think of an all, but all I really want to say is that Crouching isn't something that's going to become a sole counter to the tornado now. It's only useful in situational circumstances. Such as when MK is actually trying to keep the tornado above your head. If not, it's almost completely useless as you will have to shield anyway.

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Nobody said it would be a sole counter but point is, it does beat Nado when it's above your head (which a lot of good MK players are going to do a lot until it stops working).

I almost always tornado snake players above their heads because this gives me zero lag on landing meaning I can outsmart them and land safely. And if I dair your shield at least once, tornado will poke through.

@Berserker: You are confusing me with how you worded that sentence o.0

Ok, we got that solved lol I really need to word my responses better so that I do not get misunderstood in the first place leading to half a dozen posts on my position xD

But anyway, does anyone still know how to get the 'reversed grenade' thing done from inside the tornado? My best guess is DI out then as soon as Snake pops out a bit reverse a grenade.

I want to test this next time I get someone over for smash. But RedHalberd, how often is he able to pull a grenade when you nado? If we can get it to work everytime we're caught in tornado this would help tremendously in breaking the match.

Also, do you have any vids of a Snake crouching under tornado? seeing it would def help me in understanding how it works.


And since we're on the subject of dealing with MK's tornado, I noticed a good strategy Ally uses in some recent vids vs MKs. if your like a lil bit above MK when he tornados, like in the air or on a platform, you can footstool him at the top of the nado, then you can fastfall airdodge through the nado is your moving diagonally through it, this way you end up under him and can punish him on landing. Or even bair over the top of it.

Edit:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtTIcrgYEb4 starting at 1:57 you can see footstool to bair. And at 2:55 you can see him nairing through nado.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWZpVa6C0CQ at 0:16 you can see the footstool to airdodge

I was considering adding footstooling to this thread as it's another very underrated tactic. Seibrik does it against me in a few videos from gigabits. You can often footstool to bair/airdodge punish. Depending on the height MK is doing it from determines what your best option is. If he's too low you can't airdodge through it but he has more landing lag if he's not at the "ideal height".

I would like to see nic64 and redhalberd post more around here....<3

do you mean footstooling with snake to bair?

watch the 1st vid i posted, Ally demonstrates it quite well.

out of interest, does anyone know many frames it takes to crouch? and does shielding while crouching take any longer?

http://www.smashboards.com/showthread.php?t=242407

Based on the frame data:

you crouch at frame 3, cant do stuff up to 8
and it takes 4 frames to exit crouch, and you cant do stuff at up to 10.

But I dont think you need to exit crouch to shield, lemme know if im wrong.
Shield comes out on frame 2,

so it takes 3 frames to crouch, 2 to shield, but if you go from crouch directly to shield thats 7 frames after crouching.

I did some testing with this yesterday and I'll probably upload a demonstration video today. What I learned is...

Reverse nading out of Nado is hard if not impractical. The thing is, I dont have tap jump on, and I'm even not sure if that's necessary to do it more consistently. It also seems to depend highly on "what kind" of tornado that Metaknight does (the rate at which he mashes B).

Crouching agaisnt Tornado seems to also be rather dependent. Different MKs have different tornadoing habits. Mampam (my test subject) doesn't tornado stupidly or randomly, but doesnt tornado high all the time either. I found Utilting and my shield more than adequate against this. At winterfest I'll see how it works differently against MKs with different styles.

Footstooling tornado is AMAZING. Learn to do this and it will piss off MK players. You can foostool to bair/uair/airdodge through and punish him on the way down, or just continually footstool until the tornado ends.

Hell, you could probably even do this and STICKY HIM on the way down. This tactic seems the most underrated as a lot of MKs just try to juggle with Tornado without thinking. Definitely give this one a shot if anything.

I'll look into everything else.

Also I found out that you can throw grenades in any direction from shielding by lighly tilting the control stick and A. This is probably somewhere on the boards, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

Is it footstooling him down to the floor then you can do b-air or something like that?

As a MK main, I do not like this thread. Just saying...

Why? does radix play with tap jump on? idk how it would affect anything, i feel like it shouldnt be near impossible since i seen him pull it off a good number of times your matches.

and berk, you footstool while mk tornados so you bet above him and get in position to bair/uair him through the top. or airdodge through it and punish.

Zozefup said:

As a MK main, I do not like this thread. Just saying...

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As a MK and Snake main I love this thread.

I think MK vs. Snake is still 55:45 in MKs favor anyway. If you REALLY know how to gimp, anytime you catch him out of his second jump below 50% you can take a stock. I wouldn't want to make it too hard for snake players by sharing my secrets though.

I was using this tactic alot vs Master Raven (i think i told Halberd about this and im not getting credit )

as u can see from the date added of the vid coming up, u can actually crouch, follow they're DI if they dont immediately retreat and fsmash.



Watch the match, i believe it happens on the 2nd stock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLtcn0_uBI



btw, doing ur fsmash is still lower than standing, so they have to drop more if they wanna hit u during that, (fsmash breaks nado) if they miss time hitting u (u relese first) or if they're nado ends too early, they take it.

As a MK main, I do not like this thread. Just saying...

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This stuff is useful but it's far from matchup breaking. I'm considering quitting Snake entirely and the mechanics of how this works still interests me a lot, it's not like by not knowing about it Snake is less capable of doing it. As an MK main you should WANT to know all of Snake's possibilities against you rather than be surprised by it, even if it also means more Snake's are aware of it.

Double post

Seibrik said:

I was using this tactic alot vs Master Raven (i think i told Halberd about this and im not getting credit )

as u can see from the date added of the vid coming up, u can actually crouch, follow they're DI if they dont immediately retreat and fsmash.



Watch the match, i believe it happens on the 2nd stock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLtcn0_uBI



btw, doing ur fsmash is still lower than standing, so they have to drop more if they wanna hit u during that, (fsmash breaks nado) if they miss time hitting u (u relese first) or if they're nado ends too early, they take it.

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I see, that actually works really well, did you react to the tornado or did you predict it?

Seibrik said:

I was using this tactic alot vs Master Raven (i think i told Halberd about this and im not getting credit )

as u can see from the date added of the vid coming up, u can actually crouch, follow they're DI if they dont immediately retreat and fsmash.



Watch the match, i believe it happens on the 2nd stock.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tmLtcn0_uBI



btw, doing ur fsmash is still lower than standing, so they have to drop more if they wanna hit u during that, (fsmash breaks nado) if they miss time hitting u (u relese first) or if they're nado ends too early, they take it.

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Lol na Chops showed me this way back in April . I'll link to your vid in the first post though. Seeing it there reminded me about it to be perfectly honest lol.

Zozefup said:

As a MK main, I do not like this thread. Just saying...

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at least now you know what to expect vs snake, just saying.

Zozefup said:

As a MK main, I do not like this thread. Just saying...

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As a MK main (and just for reference, I'm refering to you, not me) I do not like you. Just saying...