Author: Corey "Missing Person" Lanier

Angel is relatively lower in the tier lists. This can possibly be attributed to the complexities of her own unique mechanics, which require you to even know proper positioning to get combos to even work with her. If you are able to do this, her combos can be as damaging as anyone else’s–it just makes people consider using less complex characters that can compete with similar damage.

This combo guide goes a long way in explaining how to make her competitive. While not only going over her best buttons, it also goes over her Unchain mechanics–a set of moves with link into each other similar to target combos, but are varied and require you to not repeat inputs in any way.

Source: Coliflowerz

The Street Fighter V patch notes were announced in the last week, which has done a lot of shaking to what we already knew about Season 2. While the jury is still out on how this will affect the season going forward, Michael Martin of Yahoo Esports took it upon himself to talk it out with various minds across the FGC and gather their opinions on the patch.

While Michael Martin attributes it to a step in the right direction, he questions the buffs to Cammy, who was already established as a strong character, and wonders why she needs anything else. BornFree also questions it from a marketing standpoint, and with ELEAGUE fast approaching, makes the top 8 potentially less exciting due to the possible inclusion of what he deems a “boring character.” He also talks to Vince Ingenito–formerly of IGN–who praised Capcom’s changes to DPs but criticized them for their lack of addressing whether the inherent input lag is actually intentional or not.

Finally, he spoke with Gerald Lee of Core-A Gaming, who said the patch notes look interesting and praised Capcom for being open about their design ideas, but showed concern that while this will mean little for casual players, the pros will have their game plans going into this Capcom Pro Tour season shaken up.

Source: Yahoo Esports

One of the most frustrating parts of any Fox or Falco’s game is their laser games. This can keep you out, while zoning and pressuring you from afar. Most players don’t know how to combat this, and thus see their percentages trickle upward while their opponents wait for the opportune time to kill.

However, against Falco, there is one possibility against laser that a lot of players never consider–eating the laser. If you take the laser from a close enough range, you can actually punish everything Falco might do next just by reading his next attack properly. As such it is much more optimal to eat a laser to get your damage in, which essentially neuters that aspect of their game.

Source: SSBM Tutorials

Mian is a very unique character within The King of Fighters XIV. With her dive kicks able to change trajectory, she is able to confuse her opponents in which way to block. Even if you take that out of the equation, the amount of damage she is able to do on the ground is scary.

The latter of which is shown in this combo video from The Combonauts, as Mian frequently hits 70% or more in a combo. This also shows off some interesting hitboxes and interactions, as Mian connects a blowback on a rolling King of Dinosaurs, which causes him to stay right next to Mian.

Source: COMBONAUTS

The Predator may have first leapt onto the big screen in 1987–killing Carl Weathers in the process–but 30 years later, his death-dealing purpose and basic modus operandi remain the same. As such, his inclusion in the Mortal Kombat XL roster was a natural fit, and he turned out as a good character to boot.

In this combo video from Pir8, Predator goes through his Hish-Qu-Ten, Hunter, and Warrior variations, showing off his combo versatility in all of them. With some amazing use of his projectiles and grabs, Pir8 shows that you can get upwards of 50% or more on a combo, if it isn’t broken.

Source: Pir8

Kor–the stone golem warrior from Brawlhalla–is an interesting character to use; very competitive, he has two different variations–between gauntlets and a hammer, the latter of which add more range to his attacks. These variations cause him to play slightly differently depending on what you have equipped.

Fortunately, this guide covers both Gauntlet and Hammer versions of Kor. It provides you some of the more basic combos, as well as some amazing kill combos, for both variations.

Source: Shadowl Ikigai

Jason “Mew2King” Zimmerman of Echo Fox has been synonymous with competitive Smash for a long time. But for ages, he has been unable to seal the deal on a major–typically making top 8, but falling short in the late game. With the string of close calls and heartbreak, fans are left wondering if he will ever win it all.

Tafokints states that while it was doubtful that Mew2King would in 2016–and he didn’t–the stars are aligning for him to quite possibly do just that in 2017. He explains that some of his major hurdles have been overcome–such as losing to every Ice Climbers player he came across. He also struggled against Liquid|Hungrybox and Alliance’s Armada–two players that he has started to take sets against in tournament play. He has also seen a better mentality, which has gotten him into trouble in the past–most notably if sent into loser’s bracket.

Source: Yahoo! Esports

Tragedy Assault seems to be often-forgotten among Nash’s tools. Whereas a lot of Nash players banked heavily on Sonic Booms and Sonic Scythes throughout Season 1, they received major nerfs coming into Season 2. Thus the focus here lies on a move that has remained consistent.

Tragedy Assault allows for amazing corner meaty setups, due to its ability to leave the opponent in the corner, drain their meter, and act as a grab. Because of this, NurseLee goes over the various options Nash has as a meaty follow-up on both EX and regular version on quick rise, normal wake-up, and delayed wake-up.

Source: NurseLee

Ken has always been known to be slightly glitchy in Super Street Fighter II Turbo. In November, we reported on a glitch where the hitbox on Ken’s fireball disappeared in the ST Grand Finals at Canada Cup between Mattsun and Kusumondo. Now, there’s even more Ken glitchiness to go around.

In a match on Fightcade against well-known US player Binary, Aznpikachu215 experienced an instance where after blocking E. Honda’s Hundred Hand Slap, he had a peculiar Tatsumaki Sempukyaku come out on reversal. The move never moved forward, but stayed in the spot where it started.

While Aznpikachu has stated that he was attempting to do an air Tatsu, the common explanation is that this was caused by Ken’s Reversal Super Glitch, which causes the last special move performed to come out instead of Super. While grounded Tatsu would move forward as the Super Glitch is performed, an airborne Tatsu will not. The reason for this is that the move doesn’t have any airborne velocity to start, which is required for the move to go forward. This can also be proven by doing air tatsu off of a neutral jump–if this happens, the move only moves forward slightly.

Source: aznpikachu215