C0R Posted June 15, 2011 Posted June 15, 2011 Matchup is rather simple, your zoning beats her zoning, whereas her mixup beats yours. Do your best to stay at a good, long range, with Habaya running at maximum uptime. If you do knock her down, push the advantage.
pochp Posted September 3, 2011 Posted September 3, 2011 I play this matchup a lot. I think it's in mu's favor, either 5.5-4.5 or 6-4, but I get that it's really frustrating for the rachel player because "braindead" stein placement ruins her usual gameplay. It's really a momentum based matchup, but Mu has the advantage at neutral... until the pumpkin comes out. I try to stay anywhere from fullscreen placing steins to 5C range for poking at neutral. The important thing is to stop rachel from summoning the pumpkin IMO because it shuts down your gameplan. You can't anti air her jump ins, punish lobelias, place steins, etc. without eating a CH pumpkin, it makes me especially sad that 236A disappears if the pumpkin hits you. Once I get a knockdown, Rachel usually has to use wind and take risks to get out of pressure. Same goes for when rachel gets you in the corner, I just block a lot, and then either jump out when I'm anticipating a lobelia, DP in a gap if I know there's one coming, use 2B if there's a staring contest, and use omohikane on a lobelia summon to get out of corner pressure. Else, counter assault and gold burst are great. I rarely use 236D outside of pressure (like, cancelling a 5C into 236D) because it's easy for the rachel to get out of its trajectory using wind and then summon a pumpkin. Simply more steins is more effective IMO. 214D is still effective because it can catch them off guard. 236A is good at midrange, excellent to cancel into from a blocked 5C or 3C. 2C is a great anti air but don't use it if there's a pumpkin. 6C is awesome to catch summons and backdashes, use this, more than in most matchups, just don't get baited because rachel can deal good damage off a punish if she has enough wind. A trick I love using is to go like blockstring 2A 2B 2B (2B) 5C 236A dash 6B. If spaced right, the 236A will keep rachel in blockstun right before your 6B hits, so if the rachel tried to 2C on reaction to your attack, they get caught by the overhead. like so : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4Xm7AZpTBo#t=35m You can evade george by just jumping around and placing steins, as soon as rachel gets hit he disappears. If you really want to kill him, j.2C kills him in one hit, but use it closest possible to the ground and only if you're very far from rachel, else it's a free punish. A good place for DP is after a blocked 3C with wind. It's + on block so the rachel player often goes for mixup, just don't do it all the time or you'll get baited obviously. Her overhead is also really slow so you can DP that if you think it's coming or can react fast enough. 5A is a pretty good anti air when rachel jump cancels a blocked normal to try to reset pressure because it also recovers fast in case the rachel jumped out to summon something. If you're far from rachel and see her summon something, you're better off building a laser fortress, don't go in, if you can't guarantee your hit, because if it's a pumpkin you'll eat a CH, if it's george block+activation just makes it a bad idea to try to start pressure or something. Rachel's 6B will usually beat your 5C in poking, because it has a faster startup and smaller hurtbox that doesn't extend as far. However, I think the reward for Mu is better than rachel, so it's not like it's a bad idea to use 5C to poke, just try not to get predictable, and know what you're going to cancel into on block or on hit, in the sense that you have to keep an eye on george if he's out. Also, after a burst, running up to rachel is a terrible idea, because she'll have enough time to summon the pumpkin and activate it in the direction you're coming from so you'll eat a CH every time (unless she's out of wind somehow). But hey I'm not saying I'm an expert, feel free to correct me.
bakahyl Posted September 3, 2011 Posted September 3, 2011 (edited) The things that i have learned from playing Rachels are: don't do stuff too recklessly Reckless and sloppy zoning might get you hit by an attack with her winded airdash and recklessly rushing her down might get you countered by a huge combo from her cat chair (2c). Zoning too much without rushing her , will give rachel some wind back :/ Edited September 3, 2011 by bakahyl
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