Matchup advice

What do I do against Midori? I can’t seem to break his defense nor win a game of attrition. I primarily play Setsuki, Menelker, and Troq but I am willing to try counterpicking if I need to. I have used Arg but in tournaments like ABC that isn’t really an option.

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Midori is a natural CP to setsuki and partially to troq.
Vs setsuki he makes her dodges useless, her grappling game much riskier and has great burst. Midori is my personal anti sets cp.
Vs troq he has the footsies advantage (.2 atks vs .8) almost the same throw payoff and still great burst. Troq’s dodges are just bad throws in that MU, and dragon Q beats everything troq has.
Imo you could pick degrey (his A dodge is unaffected by dragon stuff, punishes throws with insane dmg and has the unbeatable 7 throw), geiger (spirals make harder for midori building a hand, plus the 1 combo killer threat).
Imo these 2 should be your top selection in normal format.

Thanks. I’ll try using Degrey, but I don’t have access to him in ABC and I would rather use Arg outside in standard pick. More what I’m asking about is general ways to modify my gameplan to deal with his stuff.

general gameplan is the same as vs any of the grapplers: poke to protect your blocks, but do not let him build a huge hand. Throw him from time to time, and if possible use your char special cards to bully him (grave has J, val has K, lum has recurring J and Q etc). The only thing you must remember is that vs midori, unless you use a char with counters, quince or degrey, is better not to dodge unless u have an hard read. Midori has a huge weak point: his speed gap. human Q and AA are 1.2, the only thing faster than 1.2 is dragon Q so all chars with faster attacks can exploit this to force him on the defensive, throw him and threat a mix up into huge dmg.

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I am going to give advice on one specific MU on one specific turn. On Turn 1 against Grave, Midori fears Jack spam. Midori will often not be concerned with losing combat to get rid of J. If you have any form of straight on Turn 1, play it. That is all I have. I play Zane. I am always a threat to Midori.

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One more important thing to note. There is usually a point where Midori is likely to be out of Dragon cards (while in Dragon Form). Midori really wants to block this turn. Be careful, though. He may be willing to break Dragon form because he has more 2s, or he might just be a wild dragon. You never know. The point is that you have to learn to spot the points in time where you might have an advantage.

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I found in general that when playing Midori, I was really uncomfortable at low hand, and definitely wanted to be blocking more in that situation, which can be exploitable.

That makes sense. I’ll need to get the hang of this.

another advice i can give to you, is to play midori (you) vs the AI using your character. See how does it feel in his shoes, to understand what are his strong and weak points.

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Good idea 10

Midori tends to have worse footsies than the other grapplers, simply by not having a K-throw that beats fast normals. He makes up for this by having incredible burst damage off his dragon specials and his super.

Once he is in dragon form, he can only throw you with K and AA, so blocking when he is low on those cards can be quite safe, and may force him to put himself out of dragon form in order to throw you. Because his super can be pumped for max damage, if you have a Joker, you can get away with blocking AA and only taking 20.

If Midori goes into dragon form he can exert two kinds of pressure, depending on how many Qs he has not yet played. If he hasn’t played many Qs, he can play dQ and dK/super mix-ups. If he has already played a lot of Qs, he can play dodge and raw super mix-ups. The latter is much easier to navigate with a Joker in hand, while the former doesn’t really care about you having a Joker, since Q/K are both already very damage efficient cards.

Midori is a high variance character that can really capitalize on drawing a god-hand, so sometimes you just get blown up by dQ after dQ. On the other hand, sometimes Midori draws 4 dodges in his opening hand and has to hope he can make it to the midgame with enough HP to make something happen. In summary, Midori is a land of contrasts.

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Another thing to keep in mind is that, generally, Midori in dragon form does not risk being taken out of dragon form if they play a dragon special. There are very few characters in the game for which that is not true.

  1. Setsuki: she has an attack that outspeeds dQ, and can also combo into a throw off attack starters.
  2. Rook: with rock armor, he can punch through dQ, and can also combo into a throw off attack starters.
  3. Quince: has dodges that work against dQ/dJ, and can also combo into a throw off attack starters.
  4. DeGrey: has dodges that work against dQ/dJ.
  5. BBB: can combo into a throw off a successful 7 attack.
  6. Zane: can combo into a throw off a successful attack starter.

Other characters can also beat Midori’s very powerful blodge/super mix-up.

  1. DeGrey: can use 7 to beat either side of the mix-up.
  2. Jaina: can use her unstable power with a 6 to beat either side of the mix-up.
  3. Quince: can use positive spin on his Q or patriot mirror turns to beat either side of the mix-up.
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