Help Leontes beat Geiger plz

Yomi
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Hey guys! I need your help.

I cannot beat :geiger:. Well, I mean. I can, sometimes. But not as often as I’d like. Here are my lifetime stats against him:

:midori: 8-21
:menelker: 6-9
:zane: 2-3
:grave: 1-3
:setsuki: 1-1
:degrey: 1-1
:troq: 0-2

Total Lifetime: 19-41 (31.6%)

And that’s just the matchup chart! If we’re counting IRL games, I know that countless fights against @Hydro, @MadKing, and @ratxt1 further stack up the L column. Actually I think in the :midori: vs. :geiger: fight, I am literally 2-20 against @MadKing if we count all the times we played the matchup either in tournaments, or in a closed setting where he was actively trying to teach it to me.

Keep in mind; this is NOT a salt thread or a place for me to complain about the character, nor is it a place to deride players who find success with him or enjoy playing him. I’m not trying to state that he’s broken or overpowered or anything like that (in fact, while he does have one of the highest winrates, it’s only 53% according to the historical chart), and if it comes across that way it is very much so not my intention. I am making the claim that every time I lose to a :geiger: player, I am being strictly outplayed mentally, as I really am lost as to what my gameplan even should be.

It’s just become such a meme at this point. I have spent SO much time trying, labbing, playing casuals, theorycrafting how to beat him, etc. You’d think that if 100% of my “training room” time in Yomi is spent thinking about :geiger: I’d have a solution at this point but I still don’t. I’m not even kidding about that btw; I spend zero time thinking about any other matchup and can go into any fight with full confidence that I have a gameplan, even against :bbb: for example. I also don’t get salty when I lose to :bbb:, but the despair I feel when fighting against :geiger: is completely singular and only applies to him.

After all this time, I’m just upset with myself that I STILL don’t have a counterpick character for him and I STILL don’t have a valid strategy that beats him. It’s endlessly frustrating.

@MadKing is going to try to help me, but at this point I’m just emotionally checked out whenever I see that yellow bastard. If anybody ever questioned how close to a “real fighting game” Yomi is, they can be sure that the concept of the “Kryptonite character” is alive and well in Yomi, lol.

I’m hearing the best strategy is to just play :zane:. I’m not against doing this (I cp :degrey: with :zane: too), but I don’t feel confident in the matchup. I guess I just need sparring time in it.

Excellent job to all of the strong :geiger: players out there; too many to give shoutouts to. My recent deconstruction against @Southpawhare in Summer Smash is the catalyst for this cry for help, lol. GGs sirs (time to climb through loser’s to fight you again!)

Any tips you guys can give me are greatly appreciated. Especially in the :zane: vs. :geiger: matchup since that’s probably going to be my main focus from here on out. Any info there so that I know specifically what I need to work on would be fantastic. I am already okay with the rest of the carousel so :zane: seems like the right choice.

As an aside; I also encourage other players to make their own threads asking questions about matchups they’re struggling with. There are a lot of awesome veteran players out there willing to share tech with you to help you get better at the game. I have given out so much anti-:midori: tech in my time it’s almost self-destructive :wink: but that’s what a real fighting game community does; drive everyone to get better in the long run.

Please guys, drive me to get better, too. Thanks.

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I’ll have a couple of Troq/Geiger and Oni/Geiger matches on my channel in the next month or so. I can’t speak to Zane/Geiger, but I assume you play to win the early game and do Anarchy/throw/dodgeAnarchy if that doesn’t work. I know that’s not the most in-depth advice, but as a general gameplan.

Is it possible that you take either too many, or too few risks against Geiger consistently? Do you spend too much time on Yomi layer 0, 1, or 2 consistently? Your Zane/Geiger is 2-3. That’s nearly 50/50 with relatively few games played, at least in tourney. Could be a simple matter of low numbers combined with lower rates of practice/match-up experience?

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Yeah low matchup experience. I’m not sure where risks come into it. I feel like “just throw a Spiral and see what happens” is so powerful and oppressive a gameplan that I feel like Geiger isn’t taking any risks by alternating J and Block, whereas I have to Reversal/Throw to do anything at all.

So Geiger to me does these things:

-Has Attacks that punish Blocks, and then he gets Knockdown. They aren’t very slow either; most characters’ best option is to reversal to beat these.

-If he thinks you’ll do anything offensive, he might outspeed you with J, or crush you with K or AA. He can also just go Block/Block (Geiger wins), Block/Dodge (Geiger wins) or Block your reversal (Geiger WINS).

-Throws are beaten by his good attack game overall. However he is also one of the few non-grapplers without an ability on his 7, so he has good access to his fast Throw and can outspeed you even though he has x.8 Throws.

-Normal Attack. Zane and Geiger are the two strongest characters in the game imo; they are also the two characters who benefit most from Normal Draw in v2. Geiger staves off throws, draws cards, and can spaghetti combo into massive damage by using his Q and high normals. He can hitconfirm into AA or K for damage/setup.

So he’s basically the absolute best Attack/Block mixup character in the game (close nods to Arg, Lum and Grave) because it’s the slowest gameplan, has massive damage conversion on poke/Q without committing a lot of resources to combat reveals (unlike say, Midori), and the longer the game goes the more potential he has to burst you to death without Jokers being able to help. K and AA make it hard to play Attack/Throw against him because they’re so good, and Block/Throw characters struggle against his innate playstyle.

All of these things considered, I seriously don’t see a hole in his gameplan against any character save for Persephone and Menelker getting extremely good draws to ruin his hand. I made this thread so you guys could help me prove otherwise.

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I think the crux of the matter is this. While Fast Time Spiral (2.4 speed) is not slow, it’s also not fast either. It’s beaten by tatsu/divekicks, of which Geiger does not have one of. I think this is the main interaction here. You don’t need a reversal, just an attack within the range of what I consider a “Dashing Attack”: Grave’s Whirlwind, Menelker’s Chickenfoot, Setsuki’s Divekick, Lum’s Coin Toss, Argagarg’s Water Clone Jutsu, Gwen’s Burnbarrow (and 2 attack), Gloria’s Healing Beam, and so on.

Now, how to outspeed stuff is obvious, but there’s some back-and-forth counter-play here. Geiger’s opponent has these moves that explicitly beat Fast Time Spiral, but Geiger gets to use Fast Time Spiral more often because of a limited amount of recursion. So what it comes down to is one side having the superior move, and the other side having the superior resource efficiency. That is what you need to be focusing on winning - use your tatsus better than Geiger uses his (slightly inferior and slightly more numerous) Fast Time Spirals. Easier said than done, but still. A significant advantage goes to whichever side better uses their respective resource.

Also, there’s something to be said about Geiger needing to spend a throw for every Time Stop, which is not cheap. It is not uncommon for him to run out of throws, or have only one throw, even if he has 5 or 6 cards. Look for and punish this.

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Caveat for all of this. I haven’t played much against MadKing, ratxt1, or deluks. I’ve had good success against Geigers with Oni, and more recently with Troq in the match-up though, and that’s the place my advice comes from. Take it with a “this is speaking from personal experience, not from theory” sized grain of salt. Maybe my opponents primarily mind-gamed themselves to death. I don’t know.

I was primarily referring to lategame TD set-ups. Do you play these too risky (dominant throw too much) or too safe (reversal with Joker so you will only take 20/21 damage on a combat loss)? But the early game has its same share of tension. In the early game, where Geiger is primarily playing spiral/block/normal against grappler types, are you dying because you’re playing too risky (trying to throw his blocks too often), or too scared (blocking too much/spending too many reversals)?

Ah, okay. Keep in mind that your throws only need to fear Qs. And if you’re a high health character, you don’t even really need to fear those in the extremely early game. Throwing into a J is as effective against Geiger as it is against Grave (very).

The other thing to keep in mind with high health characters is that Geiger’s spirals beat blocks at the expense of his early game. If you take ten damage and then reversal into a block, you’re back at square one and you haven’t wagered much of significant value.

Lategame, sure. Early game (again, against high health characters), AA is proooobably a loss you’re okay with taking, and K, so long as you don’t get mixed up for significant damage on the subsequent turn, can also be shrugged off.

Thinking purely in terms of “block-block favours Geiger” is also going to lead to more pressure than it warrants. Block-block favours whoever needs tools more, and whoever draws the more useful tool off that turn. If you’re Troq, block-block is actually pretty damn good: you avoided a large normal string, you got a hand that better accomodates powering up for AAA/AA, you got another chance to draw a crucial dodge or Q.

I suspect this may be the crux of your issue against Geiger. If you are never blocking with confidence, or allowing Geiger to block successfully, this match-up will definitely fray your nerves and cause you nightmares. Geiger is like any character: sometimes he draws garbage hands and doesn’t find the tools he needs. If you never find a moment to rest in this match-up, you will spend energy jumping at shadows and overreacting to threats. And Geiger is extremely good at punishing people who throw too much and attack too much. Probably better than punishing people who block too much, to be honest.

Not without cost, risk, and not at all times. Q is a bad reveal in the early game against high health characters if it beats and attack or throw. QK is okay. Q567 is maybe okay, even with the big damage it provides. Both of those lose to every character’s 2 poke. Both of those are mostly fine to block. Both of those cost Geiger cards in the early game he is trying to escape from.

More broadly:

I think the best characters against Geiger are those that disrupt both his early and late game. My personal preference is characters that can do so with relatively little risk and/or with allowances for combat losses along the way, and with the potential for large burst in the mid/late game if the early game doesn’t work out. Onimaru does this very well, since he shuts down all non-blodge sides of the TD mix-up in the lategame with FA, and also contests throw/blodge with his 7.

Troq actually kind of does that too, with the exception of having to deal with AA/AA mix-ups. He can, however, play Q/AA to only have to lose 20/21 damage on TD losses. He wins those exchanges based on his HP and the rest of his hand composition, etc.

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I should really just play Grave maybe, who feels okay playing JQKA (or even AAA) at any point to stuff a J, no matter the game state. That’s important I think; also having Mental Toughness at all is good.

The second paragraph is something I need to take into consideration I think. I feel like when I lose to Geiger, they used their Js perfectly; hit Throws and Blocks all day, navigated my Attacks with Block/Reversal, and I lose. So I’m clearly being outplayed, but it’s tough to see how when it looks like they’re just playing a very basic attack/block game that is extremely safe.

So even as Midori (which I don’t think is as unwinnable as my own numbers suggest, lol), I can at least trade Js, blow up his J with Q (into 20-30 damage) or be more liberal with AA in the neutral. It just hurts so much to run any of those into Block/Reversal and I feel like I’m spending drastically more resources than Geiger is when he plays things. But maybe he really is, and I’m overblowing how much offense he has at any given moment.

It’s hard when it feels like he’s just poking out to beat Throws or something, and then whoops 26 damage and he still has a 9 card hand >_<

I’ll keep all that in mind about being too aggressive. It just always feels as though I’m supposed to rush him down before he gets a big hand size, but I can never actually oppress his hand no matter how hard I try. So maybe trying that is the wrong approach entirely. I feel like building up alongside him is a losing game, too, which is why I push a lot of buttons against him.

I just feel like his combat reveals are so much less committal than most characters. Like sure he doesn’t always have a big combo in his hand, but he probably has at least ONE, and he can find ways to dump his hand when he finally does get a hit. It’s a bit of why DeGrey is so powerful a character; he can hold AA in his hand forever until the opponent doesn’t facedown, or an unassuming combat win happens (like 2 poke, or just any old Throw) and then confirm into Aces. He’s not obligated to really do anything else, or lead Final Arbiter.

Geiger being able to hold onto 4 Aces, get TD, and then run the following mixup:

Throw (loses to Attack/faster Throw)
J/Q (loses to faster Attack/Dodge but you might be KD)
K (repeat mixup)
AAAA (only loses to Blodge)

Being able to use J and Q to pressure my hand in the early game, then recur them to set up confirming into Unjokerable Aces (even off of Throw! Wowwwww) is just mindblowingly powerful, so I never want him to get to that point.

Hrm…

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well, my advice may be unhortodox, since is to learn vendetta.
My main points of him having the highest win rate (for me) against geiger are:
a) 2 poke beats all spirals but slow AA, that also fetches u cards either geiger blocks or loses combat.
b) high burst dmg, vendetta can dish a lot of dmg quick, forcing geiger to not rely too much on blocks, since ven too gains hand size.
c) both AAA and AA beat/clash with all the spirals (slow AA and ven’s AA have the same speed)
d)acro actually works as a joker against a TD
e) plenty of dodges and K loop.

I know Vendetta is not the most all round char, but in my book he is the geiger hard cp, the one i play when i absolutey want to win.

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Hrmmmm :vendetta:… that is interesting actually. You have great throw damage, K loop is good (bonus points if raw K hits Slow Time Spiral), Surgical Strike isn’t bad, Acrobatics… build hand even better than Geiger does by poking at him…

HRMMMMM…

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with many useless cards, i always try to pu for aces, since AA is the most card efficient follow up.
18 for 2 instead of 20 for 4 (j+++).
Also, just imho, Ven is also an hard cp against BBB, arg and quince so is def worth considering.

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You cannot avoid Geiger finding TD regularly. You can’t even avoid Geiger getting TD and a hand full of lethal damage sometimes. The only way to do that would be to just win and never lose combat. That’s not a viable strategy, because winning combat isn’t something purely under your control.

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Vendetta is a good choice, but it is not an easy path. There are many pitfalls in that matchup that will catch the uninitiated. For $19.99 per hour I will train you on the dos and donts.

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Here’s a tip: don’t do Ven.

Here’s how I play against Geiger as Troq and Rook:
Throw j and block q. Then throw him. Force him to respect your throws, then block and spd.

This should work for midori too.

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Midori doesn’t have an SPD or an efficient answer to Fast Time Spirals, or operate particularly well at 7ish cards. Don’t do Midori.

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Just a question, but have you spent much time playing as Geiger? Maybe learning first hand what Geiger fears and struggles to deal with could give you a more realistic view on the strength of his options. Warning, you have to be 1600s puritan religious careful about confirmation bias with this approach.

Speaking as someone who loves me some Persephone, I often find people’s perception of her mixup game to be bizarre. Even block beats everything she has except odd normals and throws. Odd normals and throws are in turn vulnerable to combo starter attacks and thus have a high risk. Well she can technically threaten everything under the sun on KD, the REAL mixup is actually very simple. A 65/35 split block/attack with a caveat for reads works really well since her long game plan is stifled hard by not getting the second KD.

I would hazard a guess that the REAL options Geiger has and likes to play is different then you think.

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Hey Leontes,

It’s quite random that I saw this post, and since I know you play Midori, I figured I’d share my 2 cents.

I had a strong record in v1 against Geiger, mostly because my buddy played only Geiger. I’ve beaten some top Geigers of my time, and I think my strategy was solid, though v2 slightly tips the favor in Geiger’s direction I’m sure.

Early game Midori isn’t afraid of time spirals too much because of the cost for Geiger. Him dumping J/Q and a throw for throw damage and a KD is a long-term win for Midori I think. If he goes full combo, then just realize that you’ve taxed him heavily for his combat win. It makes for a longer game, which plays into both characters’ hands, but you know you’ll have to work around TD no matter what. I almost forgot: Joker mind games are great early. Joker does nothing if he’s got a TD combo, so challenge his will early if he has a decent sized hand to combo into with time spirals. Also, I think J is a good attack option if you’re not too worried about early K. But save your Q. Block a lot, throw a little, J/normal rarely, and I think the outcome is in your favor.

TD is an interesting subgame. Geiger K, AA, AA++, throw, dodge are all threats on the table. dQ beats any TD combo, so the game is about Geiger working around that. You need to have at least one Q lategame, or you’re gonna have to Yomi the shit out of him. Geiger is going to try to blow through your Qs with a high rate of blocks most likely. He knows you’re afraid to throw, so he feels pretty safe blocking here. Throw for Geiger is high risk, high reward, so judge the throw rate based on your read on the player. Do NOT be afraid to mix in throws yourself, since this beats all that I’ve just talked about. K is a nice move for Geiger here, so you have to be aware of how he’s using Ks, and keep your block/dodge game strong. I like AA and dJ as backups if you’re low on Qs, but they are very dangerous. Really, you want to mix up block/dodge/dQ/throw here pretty evenly.

Geiger is a fun matchup as Midori because the early game is a resource battle where he’s gonna win more combats, but you’re gonna be more efficient, hopefully giving you the tools to fight against TD. You’re gonna eat some TD combos, but you’re also gonna knock him out of TD fairly often. I love this matchup.

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wildly open up your early game throw range. Basically you need to incentivze geiger to use high normal leads. His J into your throw is just not a big deal. Normal draw is a big deal and block block is a big deal. The more you throw, the more he has to attack, and he loses hand size unless its normal attack. Making his range have a bunch of normal attacks has him vulnerable to faster attacks that can really open him up. Make him rush you down and convert his hand into early damage instead of letting him build up and convert his hand into late damage.

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I’ve played a fair amount of Rook Vs Geiger, and my slightly positive tournament record of 8-7 hints that I could maybe have some tech to share, some of which will likely be applicable to Midori.

First thing is that I’d definitely recommend playing as Geiger to try and build up a strong feel for his awkward hands. I did this for a little while and very quickly realised I should not play so scared when facing him.

Imo the early game is about assessing how much Geiger can actually afford to go in, very often he can’t come back from dumping a load of cards. Throwing him a lot early puts hand pressure on him and gives him the opportunity to ruin his hand if he plays into it. You can get lots of intel from how he plays his combat wins out, and if you can goad him to dump a bunch of cards he will need to resort to blocking again and you will be able to take advantage of that.

Block is actually quite good versus Geiger once you have established a strong throw range as again it forces more cards out his hand if he spirals and wants to follow up. Also if he panic Ks and you block it you’ve definitely stolen momentum from him, so being able to put him off a spiral range by card starving him or threatening to stuff a spiral with your J is probably quite helpful.

In terms of other characters, I’ve dabbled with Ven who definitely can beat Geiger in the early-mid game. Unfortunately the TD mixup Geiger threatens after Ven plays acrobatics is super disgusting so I’d be really wary of that situation. Grave is probably becoming my Geiger CP of choice but I also really don’t mind the Argagarg Vs Geiger matchup too much despite it being considered slight Geiger favour.

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For what it’s worth, Persephone’s max combo of 71 is against Geiger.

You know you want to.

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Theoretically that’s possibly against most characters. In fact, better against Jaina because you can force her to take extra damage.

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Nearly half the cast is immune to it. Theoretically Jaina would take 99 damage, but I consider 71 against specifically Geiger the max combo because it’s slightly more realistic. Geiger is one of the only characters in the game with TWO draw phase abilities and R&D lets you search the deck for more. If you have a 9 and AA in hand it’s not unrealistic to expect a 30-40 damage+KD combo off MC vs Geiger.

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