The atrocitus and superman matchups look mostly good.
Thanks, man. If there are any particular MU's you disagree with, feel free to discuss it with me here or on the Superman Discord.
Still waiting on an explanation for why Superman beats Black Adam. Would also love an explanation for how Adam beats Grodd.
It's a day of late responses. I said it might be awhile, and I suppose it was, lol. Sorry for the delay, but I was legitimately unavailable to provide a followup.
So, the Black Adam-Superman MU.
I (or
we) have it as a 6-4 due to:
- The fact that Superman can't zone. Any MU where Superman can't zone is going to present a problem for him, unless he can make up for it with an overwhelming advantage in the neutral, or in the event his opponent has weak normals that Superman can take advantage of by continuing pressure in scenarios that would otherwise be too risky against most of the cast. Black Adam has great neutral and good normals. The quantitative loss of chip/stray hits/meterbuild that the occasional laser beam or two would usually provide can be felt.
- When the characters are fullscreen, Black Adam essentially controls the pace of the match with the threat of mb divekicks, which will catch Superman ducking, jumping, or walking forward, and can be used to initiate pressure if blocked, particularly if the divekick is low enough to the ground for Adam's highs to jail. While Superman can a2a divekick attempts for a full combo with j1, this is more of a read one makes when up against divekick happy Adam players than a reaction. It does keep Adam honest, however.
- The majority of this MU is played in the neutral, with both characters playing a hardcore game of footsies just outside of Superman/Adam's f2/f1 range. The meta is that Superman fishes for an opportunity to apply f23xxtrait/breath pressure, through which he can build meter/connect throws/maybe land a conversion or two if he's lucky, while Adam uses his walkback speed to hunt for whiffed f23's, which he punishes to death with f12.
-The amount of potential trades that can occur in the f2/f1 footsies scenario are too innumerable to bother listing all of them here, but I will try my best to discern some of the significant ones, in no particular order of importance.
*As somebody mentioned previously, the mb b3 meta factors heavily into this MU. The second hit of Superman's f23 comes out really slowly, and as such, any f2 attempt is open to being mb b3'd for a full combo. No, this doesn't work when Superman has trait active, but that is irrelevant to us here as this is a means of preventing Superman from getting his pressure started in neutral, not a means of preventing him from continuing pressure after trait activation.
This doesn't work both ways, as Adam's f12 will armor-break any attempt Superman would make to b3 after breath, if not trait. Not to mention the threat of whiffing if Adam walks back. Due to this, mb b3 attempts by Superman will more often than not be punished inadvertently.
*Superman's f23 will whiff punish the fuck out of errant d1 attempts by Adam, which Superman can either attempt to force through shimmies or catch inadvertently in the neutral. Due to the stubby nature of Adam's d1, this is a powerful af tool for Superman in the MU. F23xxtrait shimmy/f23 breath shimmy is one of Superman's primary means of opening Adam up midscreen. That said, too much should not be read into this, as Adam has ways of baiting and punishing this as well, such as back-dashing after breath, which will force f23 to whiff and open Superman up to a world of hurt. In the end, it only adds another layer to the MU, but it is one that certainly works out in Superman's favor.
*Obviously, d1 will catch Black Adam's f12. If the Superman player is gangster, he can convert this into some gnarly b2 combos due to f12 leaving Adam in an airborne state.
*If Superman breaks too far from the f2/f1 range, Adam can IA divekick in an attempt to either catch him sleeping for a conversion, or an opportunity to initiate pressure.
*As for meterbuild/the Adam meta vs. the f23 meta, this is where I would contend that Adam wins. Adam has two 6 frame buttons to contest against continuing into f23 trait pressure, which means Superman has to d1 occasionally instead of mindlessly performing f23xxtrait f23xxbreath, which severely hampers meterbuild. Shimmy is also, an option, but Adam's 11 will oftentimes catch it. Meanwhile, Superman's only real option to continue after breath is to shimmy in attempt to catch a d1. Not that good Superman players should attempt to continue pressing buttons more than once every 10-15 times after breath anyways, but Adam's buttons are good enough to catch even the cleverest of Supermen attempting to continue pressure midscreen inadvertently. F12 catching backdash attempts after breath removes another essential layer from Superman's gameplan.
*Essentially, this means that Adam gets his turn after breath, where yes, he does have the opportunity to continue into more pressure and build more meter than Superman. Superman's optimal scenario on block is f23xxtrait, f23 breath, which builds about half a bar of meter. Adam's optimal scenario is something along the lines of f12/112xxtrait, 112/113, d1xxpalpatine, which builds about 2/3rds of a bar. Moreover, Black Adam's options present him with more opportunities to mix (not implying that Adam is super mix heavy, simply that he has more options to mix than Superman does), and he does
significantly more chip damage than Superman overall, which feels buried in a footnote over here, but is actual crucial to the matchup.
-I originally intended to argue that Black Adam has a slight advantage over Superman in the neutral/footsies department, but now that I read it out loud, it could be argued that the advantage is moderate. Perhaps if I listed
everything pertinent to the neutral game between these two, I might come back to the conclusion that the advantage is slight, however. All that aside, the true reason to contend that none of the above Adam advantages matter and the MU is indeed 5-5, if you wanted to argue against me, is...
- The great equalizer: Adam gets absolutely demolished in the corner. His wakeup can be stuffed essentially on reaction, he's vulnerable to all sorts of reset gimmicks, and his options after f23xxbreath are diminished. Due to the stubby range of his d1, Superman's d1 actually out-ranges his in the corner after breath, meaning his only option is to either hold the next string, or use b3 to armor, which isn't an option if Superman has trait active. I'm going guess that other than that, I don't have to offer too much of an explanation here. Superman demolishes. That said, pushblock mitigates this advantage to a large degree, as Superman essentially has to pin Adam in the corner twice, or blow the pushblock up with a hard read and a bounce cancel (which is the greatest rush a man can experience next to things I won't mention here), but when Adam does get cornered, he is cornered.
Well, that's my Black Adam-Superman breakdown, and why I ultimately believe the MU is 6-4 in Black Adam's favor. Superman controls the corner game, but Black Adam is in control, at least to some degree, nearly everywhere else on the screen. I should once again note that this MU barely,
barely, meets my criteria for a 6-4. If I had to round it down to the decimal point, it would be 5.5-4.5. It's in Adam's favor, but not by much. Ultimately, my decision to even label it 6-4 comes down to the fact that if it is in anybody's favor, it's Adam's, and I feel as though labeling it a 5-5 conveys less information, which doesn't really serve anybody. IME it's one of the most contentious MU's in the entire game and any discussion of it is destined to only go round and round and round. I think at a certain point we have to accept that some will label it 6-4, while others will label it 5-5, and accept both opinions as valid, as they come down more to degrees and how strongly different people rate particular elements, as opposed to genuine contentions of the characters' options in the matchup.