Isorropia

I'd have to confirm it but I believe backdashing to make her j.2C whiff is a free 360B, but even if it isn't you've easily got enough time to 360A through any followup they try. That being said, mash 5A also works well if they aren't winding their j.2C, it can catch them out of the iad if you've barrier pushed them slightly.

1. If you're playing online, not much. Otherwise approach them while they get negative penalty, burn a shot if you absolutely have to (even on block), then start spamming D moves (eg, sj.C > jD, land, 2D), eventually you'll make them block something, then you can start pressure. Note this spamming D moves only works if they're purely running away. Otherwise they'll kick the crap out of you for it. 2. None, as far as I know. It's range, startup and recovery seem to be unpunishable for tager. (Unless they whiff it and you have shot ready) 3. Uh....block right? If she's doing iad j.2c crossups, it has a fair amount of lag so you should be able to block right and throw her (if she doesn't cancel into j.c) or I've had some success with backdashing, as long as you don't do it to early. As for her super, I guess you could sledge out of it if you wanted to, I've never had a rachel do that to me so I can't say for certain. (Actually, now I think about it, you could prolly just 421B the whole thing. >.>) 4. Spins and claws....depends on whether she holds it or not, and whether she uses wind. IB > 720 is always fun if you're confident enough with it, otherwise...just block it like you block anyone's lows?

That's basically what it is, BUT, you can buffer it...sort of. Do the instant block, but immediately start spinning the stick - don't wait until you see tager go white, just start spinning once you've pressed back at the right time. Then let it go at the last moment you think you can before their next attack will hit, and BAM 720. Record ragna doing 5B > 5C > 5D You can IB > 720 between any of thos (Even between the two hits of 5D!)

You can't get a guaranteed punish on a neutral tech, but tager's options seem pretty decent when I've tried them. Meaty 360B/720C will beat sitting on the ground (except for reversal throw invinc moves) and doing the same setup but hitting AC will typically catch jumpers, from my experience. Also, try jumping and doing a meaty j.D. If they try and jump it will hit them in their pre-jump frames for good damage and magnetise, and if they block on the ground it's a free magnetise.

Linking together the above few posts, in of the recent galileo matches, with his opponent magnetised he does a neutral j.D that lands before it hits, and goes straight into a 360A. Pulled the poor hakumen in quite a distance, and completely ignored his 6C. Seems like it could be useful, especially since I have trouble doing 720 off that setup. Can anyone confirm, does: 4123698D74123698C Work for a 720? Because buffering half the motion before I hit D then doing the other half doesn't seem to work.

Then it's a 50/50 where you get high damage if you guess right, and a nice juicy CH combo from them if you guess wrong.

Unless I'm mistaken, can't all 720 setups get beaten by either: A) Not teching or B) Holding up?

The timing is tight though, like the walk forward 2B on jin and hakumen after 360B. I'm lazy so I usually just go for the Bsledge Asledge(whiff) > 720 or AC.

I'm gonna guess throw invulnerable frames and/or invincible startup super on her part?

I think we're not making it out to be that bad, because as far as Tager matchups go, this one is pretty good. >.>

Wait, I'm confused. In my training mode, with wakeup set to 'quick', they do the flip up, and 'neutral' they do the stand animation. :S

Basically, since she gets act pulsar (the command backdash), she can backdash on reaction, and recover in time to CH you with swords while you're still doing your sledge. She could also jump after her swords if she felt like it.

Well, playing in score attack, I noticed interesting things happened when the computer IB'd her swords....but they mostly just backdashed, ate the 4D into a normal sword combo....I think anything that works, will work less for tager due to his large number of prejump frames.

I could be wrong, but I think that Nu's recovery on her swords is shorter than backdash + volt startup. That being said, if they're going robotic and following up with 4D even on a whiff 5D, then it's quite possible to catch them out with it.....this is all theory, naturally. Also, don't know if this has been asked before....but will 360A beat out Nu's 5D > act pulsar forward > 2C? @HZMN Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm going to assume you don't play smash. The reason that we don't 'come up with methods to stop X character with Y character' is because those methods often don't exist. As a platform fighter the gameplay is focused more on spacing approaches and knowing what moves of yours beat what moves of theirs, and the stages have a large influence on the match. That being said, counterpicking in smash can't be directly compared to counterpicking in 2d fighters, since the factors influencing a matchup are different, and aren't necessarily something that 'screams imbalance'. (Not that smash is balanced by any means)

Tager's blockstrings are great. Until they learn how to instant block. Then you've got nothing. v_v

Not quite. It happens in smash brothers because counterpicking is a large part of the game, say, your character might have a weak recovery and so you choose a backup with a good recovery so that you can just get taken to frigate or something and have an incredibly uphill battle. Or your character might beat X and lose to Y, so you choose a backup who can't beat X, but that doesn't matter because they can beat Y, so you can counterpick them if you lose to Y in a fight, but you only need to switch when Y comes up. Tager, on the other hand, loses to EVERYONE.

The thing that's so wrong with it, is that you'll need to use that backup character in order to fight everything that's not tager or hakumen....thereby making them a main. o.O You can't just say "Oh, pick not-tager for rachel, nu, carl, arakune", because in any tournament setting you could be fighting any of them at any point in time and would hence need to be using your other character just in case.

Quick rise is strike invincible too, as in, while you're doing the flip up animation. I find you can usually catch a lot of people off guard by doing a delayed quick rise, some people tend to throw out big meaty attacks expecting you to roll sideways.

Well, it doesn't work against anyone as long as they tech the throw. If we're talking about airthrows during combo, I find spark volt > airthrow > j.2C > 720 to be quite teh lulz.

Does the whiff collider into 720 actually work against people? Trying spark volt > 5C > 6A > 2C > collider(tap) > 720 in training with various settings on, it seems all they have do is tech forward over your head, then the collider will throw them horizontally rather than pull them vertically. It works beautifully on neutral tech, but the others....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hdF7ELHN5IE At 3 mins in there's a trick edge combo. Might be specific to hakumen's hitbox or bigger though.

Methinks he exaggerates slightly. >.> Is there actually any way to approach litchi, like....if you need to? I was playing a somewhat laggy match against a litchi online who decided to run away and let the clock give them the victory, there didn't seem to be anything I could do to catch them. Might have been just the lag, but.....

My usual airthrow combo is j.B+C > land > 2B > 2C > collider > 6C > 5D. If you j.2C they can airtech after collider, so I usually omit it.

Tager has 4 vulnerable frames on his backdash, his 360A is invulnerable from frame 3 or so onwards. So you've got a nice healthy 7 or so frame window to smack him. 720 on the other hand, is invulnerable immediately until the super flash, so you've only got the 4 backdash frames to tag him on.

xx stands for canceling a move, usually referring to specials. So Spark volt > 5C > 6A xx Collider just means bouncing them off the wall, comboing into 5C, gatling that into 6A, then canceling it into collider.