Seiska

Maybe some whacky air combo if the enemy get's thrown in to presents or a silly cross-float mixup on block. On Certain timings you can actually "jump-cancel" mami for some very odd vertical bounce as well. Been using the Happy magicka a lot more lately and I have to say it boosts platinums defensive game a lot. Sure it's no reversal without RC but against characters that enjoy nearly endless safe blockstrings like Litchi it's a godsend. You can simply charge it while blocking down and use it on reaction to their safe overheads plus other slow moves and you'll get free ticket out. It's ridiculously good against players who play their pressure on "auto-pilot".

Sometimes just smashing j.a can be better option, it's a bit faster and has barely any recovery allowing you to do multiple hits on air (more likely to hit). Jumping and hitting her with the bat might also reward you with nice counter hit combo if you can act fast enough. That being said, Kokonoe is considered broken by many, he has all the tools and deals loads of damage and has very few weak points, so don't get discouraged if you lose. If your friend starts to abuse the completely broken blackhole then I recommend banning the move or finding a better friend to play against. (or use Unlimited Platinum and fight broken character with broken character) There are few characters in the game that can do literally very little against it and unfortunately Platinum is one of them. [Edit] Actually Platinum does have a way to "counter" Black-hole reset, but it's more of a pre-emptive strategy than a trick... Just use most of your meter to get treasure chests and litter the field with them. With clever positioning, these will not only limit her options but cut her combos short as well (including ones that would lead to blackhole reset) Without blackhole the matchup is pretty fun actually, sure she has the edge due to ridiculous damage but Platinum has fair amount of tools against her as well.

Platinum actually has 3 reversals, one of them is item based (bat), second one is her distortion move and the third one is Happy magicka which can be used to escape pressure/corner or RC'd for a combo. She actually has pretty powerful and fairly safe bubble oki, which gives her 50/50 mixup with swallow moon (floating cloud thingy) which can also be canceled j.b, 2B or block. Good platinum players can use this in middle of pressure as well against over respecting opponents. Frying pan will also give her access to instant overhead which gives her 50/50 mixup from 5A and guessing wrong will lead to combo. My advice for this matchup is, don't give her oki and don't let her get you in to the corner. Platinum isn't the greatest damage dealer in the game but those 2-4k combos can add-up quickly and most likely do due to variety of her mixup game which is influenced a lot by what item she currently has. Her command throw (run + grab) and cure dot typhoon (spinning distortion move) also refill her items, so keep that in mind if she has cat hammer or bat equipped. Platinum mainly uses missiles to force you to block so try to avoid them if you can or just 6D~C trough them. Best time to attack is when she has no cat hammer or bat in her disposal as those are her best defensive items. Using reversals is encouraged against greedy players, and it's fairly easy to get greedy when you have a 50/50 mixup or instant overhead and opponent is slow like Kagura.

I have found C-bubble really helpful when playing defensive against some characters, it has really long duration and it bounces up and down limiting opponents movement options. If they try to break the bubble and lack good moves to do so, they might open themselves up for a well timed poke, or block it allowing platinum to get in and start her pressure. I mean, if you already have a good item and your opponent is hesitating or for some reason giving you time to fill the field with more shit, why not?

Some findings based on way over 100 matches against Litchi. She has really good range in some of her pokes when she has the staff equipped, so when she is playing defensive it's best to approach with a jump in (barrier or j.b) or just dashing in with barrier cancels. When you are both running against towards each other, depending on when her staff hits you can opt to dash in with 2B (faster than many of litchis normals, good range and low profile against her 5A and 5B) or block. She doesn't seem to have any real instant overheads (except against standing) and her other overheads are not impossible to see. Many of her moves have some recovery, but do take note of where her staff is as good player can make many of her pressure strings safer than they look. As for items, Cat hammer is easily the best item for this matchup. It outranges many of litchis moves and when used correctly can really make Litchis life miserable (Can punish most of Litchis staff attacks/placements). Bombs and missiles both serve well against her jump ins. Needless to say, that Bat is pretty good as well but you need to be a bit more careful when you use it as many of her pressure strings keep her away from bats range. Her DB is a bit weaker than what some other characters possess, as she can only use it when she has the staff equipped, making it possibly easier to bait. In this matchup, it seems platinum has plenty of tools made especially to counter litchi. Litchi's gameplay seems to be really based on frame-traps and really good block-strings in which she can mix-up lows and overheads fairly frequently while pushing opponents back to corner. However her staff often actually plays against her in this matchup due to platinums new <b>Happy magicka</b> move that triggers from any hit including projectiles, so litchi simply can't just auto-pilot her pressure against Platinum. With bat you can just block while smashing D but against good litchi it's probably best to avoid doing that against most of her lows. 6A and 2C can destroy most of her air approaches but the timing can be really difficult, especially against her cross-jump attack that leads to a frame-trap or a nasty combo. If you can, do keep track on his meter and OD as she can deal some sick damage even with level 1 overdrive (combo to OD All-green can deal like 6k damage..) so saving bursts to escape from these is probably for the best. If you get her to OD/Burst with your earlier do try to make most of it. Occasional C-bubbles from safe distances can limit her options as well so don't be afraid to use them (if you already posses a good item), her staff can break these but she needs to choose between vertical and horizontal staff launch and to break C-bubble in early flight she needs to use the vertical one which makes approaching on the ground somewhat easier.

Not really, Platinums running speed is more than enough to break out from graviton and the fireball move can be punished with dash 5B/2B. At the start of the match, Kokonoe is far too close to do any good setups against Platinum player that uses her/his cards right. If she somehow manages to trap you with graviton, and has herself covered with lightning mine then there are few options against the fireball. You can jump over the fireball towards kokonoe by timing your jump when the fireball is low enough. Due to the lightning mine you might still have to block her pressure but it's a lot easier without giant fireball blocking your vision. Have a bat equipped and smash D while blocking to send her flying. Drop Gifts Under you, as her hits will push you back but not the gift which will end her pressure. As for her Air hammer, it's not really something you should anti-air it's far better to just air-to-air her with j.c if she tries to abuse that awfully slow move too close to you. Only good way to "anti-air" it is probably lucky C-bubble or by 214D unequip. But generally it's used after her instant overhead which means it's far easier to just block it.

Nothing wrong with that especially if time is in your favor. Personally I prefer to have at least one underneath me or slightly behind me in chase of teleporters like Kokonoe and Izayoi.

Personally I like Platinum more than in CSE due to faster bubbles, Happy magicka , and the new item. I had huge problems with the 22C loops in CSE so losing them in CP while gaining easier combos only helped my game. (guess I need to git gud with my combos) I play the game only in offline mode so can't really tell how bad she's online with all that lag. But offline platinum seems feels really strong (Personally I laugh at tier lists that list her below A). Hell for some reason I am constantly beating a friend of mine who is obviously better than I am, he blocks most of my attacks and pulls out these crazy combos from left and right and often punishes my mistakes with 4-6k combos while I barely ever manage to reach 4k with mine. Mainly with some good old fashioned blocking, 6A Anti-airs, mix-up game, rapid mami (my personal favorite "match ender" and "Oh No U Don't" move), OH Frying pan or 2B low mixup, counter Cat hammer and counter bat. But Online I can somewhat guess that she downright sucks against some characters like Mu, Rachel or Relius as blocking and striking at the right moment is everything in those matches and latency doesn't really help with that. Fights against Taokaka are probably tedious as well as well timed anti-airs, a bit of turtling and keeping optimal distance is crucial in that Matchup. But from what I see, with all these can openers and tricks, Platinums combo damage doesn't really compare to ones like Hakumen, Kokonoe and whatnot.

But at that range wouldn't it be better just to use one of her low profiling moves? Like her 2B that even pushes her forward a bit, or 2A that outright beats most of platinums lows? But then again Platinum isn't one of those characters you really want to crawl against. Crouching under missiles and bubbles gives platinum player a chance to 66C her up. 3C poke is also fairly devastating against crawlers in that position as not only will the 3C hit but the missile or bubble as well.

hitbox front of her? As in, she can even hit crawling Taokaka with it? 6C is a low crush, so it beats most if not all low profile moves in the game. It's especially useful against Taokaka players who constantly spam attacks that low profile 5A and 5B. There's nothing really stupid about it as it's fairly risky to use and can be countered with Taokakas 5B due to the slow startup. Besides why would you even crawl anywhere near platinums 6C range?

From what I have played, this match-up seems pretty similar to CES. Mu has plenty of range on her attacks, but most of her B and C-moves are really slow compared to platinum. It's also worth keeping eye out on when Mu is summoning steins way too close to you. These can often be punished with Cat hammer or hearth car (a bit risky) Personally I have found it to be often safer / easier to approach mu with plain old super jumps and barrier, but dash to barrier seems to be ultimately the best option for more skilled dashers (I tend to dash to far and get greeted by her 5C.) Cat hammer, Bat, Bombs and missiles seem to be the only good normal items before you get close.

[General] This is a tricky match-up, mainly because many of our common tools are far less useful against her than majority of the cast and her attacks will tell you the harsh truth about Platinums poor backdash. For example, since Taokaka spends much of her time in the air, 2B and 3C don't get as much use as they usually do. 5A Whiffs against her 2A and Crawl which makes stagger pressure far riskier than usual. A very common reason for loss is her 6C which leads to world of hurt if you attempt to backdash or item equip too close to her. It's Negative on block however unless fully charged and even then it isn't a frame trap. It's fairly common to see it used on landing opponents, so unless you are landing on her face with j.b or j.2C.. block.. Probably key point in this match-up is to play "funky" neutral, which for me means moving and attacking as unpredictably as possible while keeping fairly safe distance (5B poke range or more). Taokakas pressure especially in the corner is insane, some might even say broken. There are barely any gaps anywhere and it's full of frame-traps, her game seems to be mainly about fishing nasty counters from these as her mix-ups are not as good, still her corner is frightening and failing to escape from there leads to a quick defeat so try to avoid this. She has lowest hp in the game, which means 3k combos hurt her a lot, and her defensive game is worse than ours so i'd recommend going the OKI route when ever possible and when you have her at the corner keep her there. [Moves] Funny thing tough is that, Platinum's 6A is ridiculously good in this match-up it's answer to pretty much all of her overheads and drive. Not to mention the fact that you can jump cancel it on block and do all kinds of shit. Sure it can be baited but it's still really fast anti-air that recovers really quickly so it can be difficult to punish even on whiff. Oh did I mention that the Hitbox on the thing is so good that it can't be low-profiled even by crawling Taokaka? It Even catches many jump-outs and can anti-air her from her drives (pretty difficult). I'd be surprised if getting hit by 6A wasn't the most common reason for Taos loss in this matchup (that and getting eaten by mix-up hell followed afterwards). Learn to use this and you'll demolish Taokakas who don't know what they are doing, and greatly increase your chance against those who do. J.c is great poke, but has some landing recovery in BBCP making it a bit dangerous move to whiff, so use it in moderation. Probably best air-to-air tool against Taokaka is J.d with frying pan or Bat. Bat can lead to some nice counter hit combo and frying pan has excellent hit-box. J.2C is is a great way to extend your air pressure all the way bag down, it's also fairly safe to pull off as it can be difficult to anti-air even from Jump cancels. j.a and j.b are both really fast, and j.a gatlings nicely to itself making it relatively safe bet in close distance air-to-air fights. Overall Taokaka has advantage on the air but Platinum can hold her ground really well there as well due to her unpredictable moves that stop her from falling, or allow her to float for extended period of time (swallow moon, air-dash) But still, Air-to-air with Taokaka is generally a bad idea especially since Platinum is pretty much a living AA-weapon ( Ask any Arakune player). 6C is risky but rewarding move you can use against players who rely too much on low profiling stuff, with correct timing it will make her lows whiff and lead to a fairly damaging fatal counter combo if you can pull it off. To increase your odds do this when you have a bat, as they'll likely want to low profile it with their 2A/2B for nasty counter hit combo. 2C is very similar anti-air option that catches some of her cross up and Ambiguous cross up attempts, but a lot harder and riskier than 6A imo. [items etc] Bombs are arguably the most useful item you can get while on neutral, the trajectory covers air pretty well and you can alter it with 4D, 5D or 6D based on opponents distance and movement. Running towards you? 4D hesitating on full screen 9 > 6D, somewhere between? 5D. If she get's hit by one of these, it often means a free anti-air combo for you, on block you might get a chance to pressure her with ordinary means or throw a bubble on the field to further screw up her air game (or at least slow her down a bit). Missiles are good as well, as they give you plenty of breathing room with 214D but work pretty well when fired at random either from air or ground, as they are pretty slow. C-Bubbles are great, they limit her air options quite a bit until popped, just do so when safe and you have decent item equipped. 214D Item unequip is pretty useful, as the thrown item has pretty good hit-box and the trajectory cuts through the air quite nicely thus making it a nice long range "anti-air" option that just might cut her airdash, drive or just hit her unsuspecting Tao from the air. C-Bubble is amazing against her, sure it can be popped but to do so she opens herself up for attacks and ignoring it can bite her in the ass sooner or later by forcing her to succumb to your pressure or just randomly capturing her. Sometimes she gets even captured due to her drives start-up. Never the less, when it's out it's not your problem but hers so no harm using it when given the chance. Presents have very little use in this matchup unless you have bubble out, if you do just discard them somewhere near the bubble. Present might hit her if she tries to pop the bubble above one. Taokaka has few ways to bait and punish the bat, so try not to be too obvious with it, same goes with Happy Magicka. Happy Magicka is pretty good tough as it can be rapid canceled in the corner, making it sometimes more rewarding than counter assault as it can be combo'd on hit for 2-3k damage which is quite a lot if you consider Taokaka has only 9,5k Health. Her fast normals make CDT a bit risky move to use, and if she blocks it and you are unable to rabid it she'll likely just corner carry you back to the corner. RC'ing it to things like bat, j.d (cat hammer or frying pan) is always an option tough. [Corner] Taokakas pressure is pretty much endless when it comes to corner and it's full of nasty resets, baits and all sorts of fast stuff. One of the things that annoys me the most is the fact that your 2A is completely useless against her in this situation since it's slow and has poor range. There are few ways to get away though, most of them are either risky or tricky. So aside from CDT and bat there are few things you can try. 1. Spot her 6C and react to it with Happy magicka. One of her blockstrings ends to her chargeable 6C, the move has plenty of recovery and pretty distinct animation so it's fairly easy to catch with it. Be careful though, as it's one of her best combo starters as well.. 2. React to any of her jumping attacks with our 2C, while it's slower than 6A it has few advantages in this situation a) Platinum ducks lowering her hurtbox b) Has a great hitbox c) Better combo starter. On block just remember to cancel it to something. 3. Wait for an opportunity to jump and barrier block, sometimes this will make Tao's 2A or 2B whiff allowing you to quickly smash her with flurry of j.a's, j.2c or j.b if you happen to have frying pan just j.d her face. 4. guess her low and use 6C, may avoid her low and give you a nice fatal counter. 5. Randomly use barrier against her hits, if she's careless she'll whiff one of her moves and you'll get opportunity to start pressuring her and escape.

Been playing quite a few matches against a friend and while my friend is still somewhat learning to play her, the match-up doesn't seem that bad. Sure she is pretty broken by having pretty much everything (damage, speed, neutrals, anti-air and mix-ups etc.), but due to her having fairly poor reversals she is highly vulnerable to Platinums OKI and mix-up game. Cat hammer and bat seem to be the best items in this match-up, but bombs, missiles and frying pan have their uses as well. Upgraded Hammer is pretty good as well, as it can help you get in and clear the field from pretty much everything else than her distortion fireball. She barely has any defensive tools against platinum outside of her Distortion fireball which looses to hammer for some reason (j.d from fairly low height). Bubble OKI seems to work really well against her, as her micro teleport will only make the bubble bounce off the corner and catch her when she appears. Aside from that the micro-teleport can be punished with 5A stagger. She has plenty of fairly slow moves that summon stuff to the field like fireballs, lightning "mines", gravitons etc. so be sure to punish those if she's within range. Depending on the opponent they can be fairly easy to read and thus punished with the good old hearth car (just be sure to have enough meter for emergency rapid, as Kokonoe deals fairly sick damage from pretty much everywhere). When she has gravitons out, she can teleport behind you but due to Platinums fast 5A that's not really something she wants to do without good setups. Platinum is actually fast enough to run trough the lightning mines, which is sometimes useful for cleaning the field, but be careful as her gravitons and teleporting can screw this up. When using Dream sally be sure to do so outside from Kokonoes 3C range, got punished by it quite a few times when using Dream sally after block-string (bad habit) Much of her game is about confusing the flow and movement of the opponent with gravitons. But they are a bit double edged and can actually Pull/Push you out from the harms way and screw up her combos and make her unable to punish some of your moves. It might be better to play defensive in these situations or do something really crazy and unpredictable. Funniest stuff I have seen with this has been super 6B! (something on the lines of 3x range double the speed) and super fast Mami circular which hits like a truck. When preparing to block the incoming fireball setup, it's handy to have few treasure chests or presents under you and slightly in-front of you and behind you for added defense as it's pretty tough to see what Kokonoe is doing especially behind the bigger fireball. If she teleports behind you during this, you might be able to punish it with 5A which also removes the smaller fireball from the field. Bat is also nice. With correct timing you can even jump + i.a over the fireball to stir her game up a bit.