Mitsu Matchups Ranking Project
I base my opinion on two things.
1 - characters strengths and weaknessess.
2 - gameplay experience
Mitsu strenghts:
- Very strong post GI
- Very strong SS punishment
- Very good CH options
- Very good lows
- Very good tech catches.
- Good range
- Good stance game
- Decent damage
Weaknessess
- No good unsafety punishment until i18
- Relatively weak mid moves.
- Linear
- Very unsafe
- Relatively weak/easy to escape wakeups.
Vs Asta
Advantages:
- 1A is technically safe against astaroth
- You can take advantage of your strong GI if asta uses slow moves. (not really an advantage)
- MST can limit asta usage of 44A and other horizontal mids. (not really an advantage)
- Asta doesnt have fast/good punishers from SS/8wr.
- 4B is a very easy and useful counter to Astartoh's 4[A+B]
Disadvantages:
- GI is not a good way to stop Asta mixups.
- b6 and 4A is nearly useless.
- Can't outspeed astaroth
- MST is nearly useless
- Very hard to apply 88_22A punishment
- Hard to fish a CH on Asta with safe options.
- VERY WEAK FC PUNISHMENT compared to asta throw damage
VS AMY
Advantages:
- You can step most of her moves and mixups and abuse your powerful 88_22A 8wr punishment.
- 3G is very useful against amy, you can abuse your powerful post-GI game against Amy. Even better if you can GI (3B)A on reaction.
- FC 1B is very powerful against amy FC set-ups with minor disadv like 1A or A+B,K or 3B_3BA mixup. She would think twice before interrupting , risking a 80+ damage on a CH.
- Your CH game can be very advantageous if used sparringly with GI and step.
Disadvantages:
- Stances are very weak against amy.
- She can punish all your basic moves very well with BB , 66B or 3B
- You cant take advantage of your range against her, b/c nearly every move she has TC's
- Her B+K aGI makes your already poor risk reward on mid atacks even worse.
- You can't punish her unsafe moves well enough.
- Can kill from single KD.
Voldo
Advantages:
- 66A bug vs Voldo BS aGI (BS A+B) used in conjuction with 2KB makes BS pressure nearly impossible.
- You can take advantage of your extended range.
- You can take advantage of GI against some of voldo mixups from stances (2A+B~CR ex)
- Voldo cant punish you well from sidestep. Also, Voldo can't step well.
- Stance can be used relatively well against Voldo (watch out for CR B though)
- You can punish his 66A+B with k:B relatively easily, removing one of his better ranged tools.
- You can connect some better combos, turn some tech catches into traps or even connect some backthrows (especially MST) due to BS.
Disadvantages:
- Voldo can punish your unsafes very well.
- Voldo 6G after some transitions into BS evades your 2K(B) allowing him to punish you on hit. (still easy to counter though)
- Voldo has some good TC moves to counter MST transitions.
- Some combos will work awkward b/c of Voldo BS.
- Voldo post GI is very strong.
Yohimitsu
Advantages:
- Stances are abusable against Yoshi, b/c he has no good answers to MST and has to take risks against RLC.
- Your ranged pokes and CH game are abusable against yoshi.
- MST crouches through iMCF. 66K jumps iMCF allowing to press the adv in many situations. = iMCF is less a threat than to a usual character.
- You can punish DFG K and FC 3K very well with 4KB.
- 214A doesnt evade most of your usable mids and 2KB (it still evades 66K and BB)
- Yoshi has no particularly powerful punishment for 2KB.
Disadvantages:
- Yoshi can punish some of your useful moves with 6K_6K2K
- Very few opportunities to step into 88_22A.
- GI is not easy to apply (option select is very disperse frame-wise), throw and slow lows are big part of the game.
- No decent counters to DFG. (not really a disadvantage)
- You cant punish some stuff faster characters can punsh.
- iMCF forces you to change your 50/50 game significantly.
Recently I've been actually thinking this matchup is 6:4 favorable for mits.
PS to Saitoh: I'm sorry, friend, I still feel I need to give you a better explanation on what I think about this matchup, I need to re-check your vids to give advice. I will do so next week, for I will be on a business trip for a weekend. About what you posted before about b:A, or course it is a decent tool, but with a little anticipation you can punish it (I agree its not easy at all, though) and I havent seen a single bA in you vs Lee vids, thats b/c he had no opportunity to apply it, thus it is a situational move. Dont let yourself be tricked into thinking something is useless b.c your opponent seem to have found a good counter for it. bA is something that helps me a lot, but once I start overusing it, or 1A to interrupt I become very vulnerable to bullrush, or punishment if my opponent anticipates it or you can just guard and get a free grab attempt at closer range. Few notes about wake ups - after bullrush hits small dash into 2A+K is a great setup for 3B_3 mixups. I saw you use this in other vids, but probably the pace of this match were too fast. Even just run into throw is not interruptible. there is no real reason for astaroth to be walking around grounded enemy, asta can always force his opponent to get up and then unleash hell on him ;)
I will try my best to go in depth once I return.