Fantasy Strike MatchUp Chart

With the nerf to rook and changes to setsuki I feel that rook loses pretty hard to setsuki. We’ll see though.

Rook received nerfs?

Also from 9-1 to “loses pretty hard” is a hell of a change, care to elaborate?

Air super (non-invincible) startup increased by 5f (when going for fastest possible air super

You mean that he needs to be jumping for 5 more frames before executing the move or that the move itself has 5 extra startup frames?

The latter, I believe.

It’s the former, there is a standard minimum height for air supers and previously rook’s was an exception but now it is not an exception. It takes 5 extra frames to do jump -> air super

And that with the B buff made a 9-1 match 3-7? Sounds a little unreasonable to be honest.

That’s correct, it does sound unreasonable

Previously Rook could C-throw out of 100% of Setsuki’s throw/kick ground mix-ups. Now he actually has to engage in it. That’s pretty big! (And pretty reasonable, imo.)

Was there a also a change to the way that Valerie’s BB into cross-up/same side worked? I thought you could mash normal throw to beat both of those options, but it didn’t seem to be working as Lum. Was that only ever a Rook/Midori thing?

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It works with everyone, but it’s spacing dependent so Rook and Midori have a better chance at it as their throws have more range.

I still think this should be fixed though.

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I believe when Valerie is right next to the opponent, the opponent cannot grab her cross-up option by mashing grab. But, I think if the grab is delayed you can catch either one in that instance.

Lum seems solid to me. I think his hardest time is against Grave.

For one matchup that I thinkseems quite good for Lum (Rook), you mention Rook stalling against him to build super. If rook wants to stall, let him. Lum will get a bunch of free damage and even healing. Why do you need to approach Rook if hes hanging back? Same for stalling DeGrey. If those characters who can’t even hurt me at long range want to hang back, seems they are basically giving me the win

Why do you think grave is his worst match-up?

Because fireballs do A LOT of work, Wind either neutralizes Lum’s items or turns them against him, and Lum’s jump in is too slow and crappy to really pressure Grave. he can even be anti aired by sword!!! and Grave can pretty easily counter his specials on reaction

Lum’s best tool in the matchup for getting some tempo is the dice super. I haven’t really found another one againts good Grave.

Now in practice, I haven’t had much problem fighting most Graves with Lum, but playing the Grave side it feels really easy, and there’s this one Japanese Grave player who is good at the matchup (rakkun1010)

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I can see Grave being even harder than Jaina, but it’s arguable.

Anyway if you feel confident enough to put your thoughts into numbers I’ll add them to the chart.

First of all, when I say stalling, I don’t mean just down backing the entire game, I mean generally playing safe and not being aggressive in a way that leads to punishes. For rook, this means using things like clap and air C to destroy Lum’s items and score free knockdowns (which, even if they don’t lead to anything, waste time and allow Rook to build super).

If Lum actually could get free damage in this situation, he might do okay, but he doesn’t.

Obviously, Rook doesn’t stand close enough for coin and cloud to hit.
Mini-Lum is no threat whatsoever, clap and Air C easily destroy it.
If Lum throws cake or cherry, Rook can usually get to it first, especially if he gets a knockdown from Air C. Alternatively, ground C can also be used to get it.
Bomb does nothing useful. It forces Rook to block, but Lum can’t throw another item or get momentum in any way unless super is available.
Mini-Rook is good in this matchup, but it’s so rare that it basically doesn’t exist as an item.
So basically, Firework is the only item that does anything useful, and it’s quite rare. Rook will often build a full super before you throw even one.

Degrey can do mostly the same things, he harasses in a safe way with the ghost, can destroy minilums with his ground punch, and if a firework is ever thrown, he can dodge with his backstep. Notably, neither super is ever safe vs degrey at neutral, he can punish ground super with B->B and air super with his own air super at any range.

[quote=“SirHandsome, post:114, topic:626”]
I think his hardest time is against Grave.[/quote]
There’s no question that his worst matchups are vs projectile characters, because he can never create space to throw items and he has no way to challenge projectiles. Plus, they all have good reversals so he can never Air B vs them even if he does find an opening to land on the spring. He really needs roll to have proper projectile invulnerability so they would sometimes think twice about fireballing at mid-range, rather than just having 1-2 frames of invulnerability in the middle of the move that is probably unintentional.

Incidentally, if Lum’s roll is intended to work the way it does (for the sake of argument, let’s say it’s projectile invulnerable on frames 20-23, though these are totally made up numbers), I feel that strongly goes against the design of Fantasy Strike, which is to have clear and understandable gameplay, as there’s no indication why it would be invulnerable there. For starters, Fantasy Strike should probably display a unique character outline effect when a character is immune to projectiles so we can at least determine where this invulnerability is (maybe orange? We already have blue for armored and white for total invulnerability), and the window probably needs to be extended so it’s not like a 1-frame thing to go through.

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I think Lum does pretty bad vs Geiger too, and not great vs Jaina

He really seems like he has an advantage vs Rook though

I definitely think Rook is one of his most winnable matchups, but I still don’t think it’s any better than even. I really doubt Lum wins even a single matchup, and the ones he loses (all fireballers, all rushdown characters), he loses really bad.

I think they went way too far in terms of trying to make Lum feel “fair” regardless of what items he drew, so you’d never be like “omg, he got two good items in a row and there’s nothing I could have done”, but they forgot that he has to work to get into a good position to throw an item. When the other characters get into their optimal situation, they always get a strong reward out of it, whereas Lum has to do just as much work for only a chance at getting a reward. Imagine if when you were playing Rook, sometimes when you landed a grab, he would just drop you and you’d get to hit him for free. That’s what playing Lum is like. Even when you get his best items, they’re not any stronger than tools the other characters can use whenever they want.

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Can we stop him from ever talking about Lum again?

You would deny a man his greatest passion? I think it’s clear that Tero cares much more about Lum being bad than either of us; who are we to say that he shouldn’t be allowed to post about this in the matchup thread?

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