Baiting Reversals

[CT_Warrior]

What are some methods you use to bait reversals?

I honestly hate reversals, but I hate it even more when someone reacts to your baiting and puts the hurt on you even by the use of the scrubbiest means, so I thought it'd be good to learn different ways to bait them.

I'll share some of methods to start.

IAD jX
Time an IAD air attack so that it would/could hit the opponent as a meaty. So Kohaku's fake jC meaty into 2A could work, just block on reaction for EX flash (your attack meaty or fake meaty would whiff and you would land on the ground without recovery and block the revesral) or keep blocking for a bit longer if you have a hunch that they'll use a non-ex reversal, then 2A. Kohaku's fake jC into meaty 2A would not work.

Meaty 2A with latter active frames into block
This doesn't work consistently on reversals with fast startup, but you will be able to safely throw out the 2A and block the slower reversals.

Delay, attack
Delay enough so that any time for them to input a reversal on wakeup is passed, and attack. They probably won't be able to react fast enough to poke that gap unless they're mashing it or expecting it. This can get you annoyingly mashed out at times.

Appear to be doing a meaty, jump
You can mash 2A or dash in or something to trick them into predicting the wrong thing. The direction you jump varies per reversal.

Dash in, backdash
Depends on your character's backdash and works better for reversals that are air unblockable, pressure is significantly weaker unless they were mashing 2A for a misread tickthrow, which you can punish if you are Nanagay.

Specials that are safe to some extent
Hisui 623C, Akiha 214B, Kohaku 236[A], VSion 236B, Sion gunthing

[Benny1]

Safe jumpins are a quite a effective way if you can time them consistently.  Have your jumpin work so that in the startup of the move you have your active frames on the enemy, so you just whiff, and you land by the time the reversal comes out.  Harder with faster reversals, but it's reasonable.  Works really well against V.Sion and Wallachia ex-kattos, dunno about what else.  It should in theory work against any reversal, really.

[Tonberry]

Against characters who only have ex reversals you can jump then press shield on reaction if you see the super flash.  If you don't see the flash, just do whatever though this loses to wakeup 5aaa.  Some dps will whiff if you do jump airdash in the corner.  A bunch of characters can put things on the screen such as Koha cactus, Nero's summon, etc. that will hit meaty or shortly after with little to no risk to them.

[Irysa]

It doesn't really apply to MBAA anymore, but meatying stuff with clash worked wonders in MBAC.

Vs various reversals you can just simply stay at a distance and meaty with 2c or whatever and often this means dp one hits once, depends on your normals. This is pretty abusable vs people with multihit non autojuggle dps like Nanaya.

Problems with this include that reversal wakeup backdash has no startup in MBAA (ie you can actually dodge meaties with it), and whilst that itself is still easy to beat (2a 2c meaty), it can screw over the previous tactic a lot.

Often doing the exact opposite of a safe jump can be a good strategy as well. Empty jump late enough so you COULD meaty in the jump don't actually do it. If they go for something, shield it, if they backdashed you can usually land and sweep them, if they jumped you can guardbreak them.


Into the "retarded and not practical" examples, whiff overhead on okizeme but do it early enough to recover. It tends to work even better if you do it repeatedly in the time space (assuming you have the knockdown time).

[S-Blade]

The best options for baiting reversal are usually character dependent (on your opponent's character, i.e. the reversal they're baiting). Dash in delayed hit works wonders (as long as you're blocking in the delay) because no one wakeup throws in this game because, well, throw is just bad (and you could easily just space it correctly to be out of throw range). Safe jumps are also good but depending on the reversal some are going to be much easier than others. One thing that might be worth noting is a meaty projectile; again depending on the reversal, even if you get hit by it at point blank, your projectile can issue a trade that results them eating an air CH2 if their reversal makes them airborne; this also works great against wakeup backdash so there's kind of an option select there that potentially has a lot of reward if you can rack up a lot of damage with a CH2 combo.

Backdashing on their wakeup is another very safe, low-risk way to bait a reversal, but realize that if they don't DP you essentially lost all the advantage and momentum you just had. You can take things a bit further by using their reversal's properties to make them more confident to reversal; for example, if their reversal is air unblockable, come at them with a jump and backdash when you land. And remember that methods to bait/beat reversals that involve blocking the reversal won't work against heat activates, so even without shielding, few things are going to give you a 100% guarantee that your pressure will continue.

Also, keep in mind that baiting reversals doesn't only happen on wakeup, it also happens in pressure (and much more often due to the fear caused by pressure). Ways to bait DPs during pressure are more limited, but the plus side is that, well, they're pressured. Something as simple as a far 2a whiff "fake" can get someone who's on tilt to completely whiff a DP in your face.