Strategy - Erron Black The Erron Black Gameplan & MU Thread *Updated*

[Pakman]

Erron Black Overview

Spoiler

Generally speaking, his variations provide him with a specific niche; outlaw is up close, marksman is full screen and Gunslinger is mid-screen.

Since caltrop DOT is quite low, the idea is to throw it out and lock opponent down with pressure strings so they eat caltrop and the pressure damage; this is particularly effective in corners.

Combo carry potential is incredible as is his corner game, where he really shines.

Wake up slide particularly effective for corner escape/spacing reset.


Combo damage is circa 20-30% meterless anywhere on the screen - this goes up rapidly in the corner depending on his variation [see the combo thread]. His best combo ender is xxdbf2, however he has many acceptable alternatives depending on what you want to do. Again, the emphasis with EB is on corner carry combos and then corner lock downs.

For zoning purposes, bf3 sand grenade hits as low for 9% (~2.5% on chip), and causes a knock-down; 3.2 string also causes a knockdown on hit for ~7. The added zoning tools in Marksman and Gunslinger create an awesome synergy and in should you chose to go outlaw, you still have access to some decent zoning tools

Match ups:

Cassie

Spoiler

Full screen:
She can threaten you with akimbo shots, but you can low profile this completely by ducking. There's a lot of recovery frames on akimbo, so if you see an opportunity, dash in and beat the shit out of her/return fire as appropriate.

If you are in Marksman, your gunshots will out-damage her akimbo projectiles, so concentrate on full screen projectile zoning. Gunslinger SOS 4 checks her akimbo damage and you recover faster than her so you can control the pace of the fight better than she can. Lay down caltrops and force her to come to you, alternating your projectile zoning.


Mid screen:
The two main moves you have to watch out for are her shadow kick and her enhanced up-kick follow up - both are full punishable though. Bait and punish accordingly.

Due to the start up and recovery on her akimbo shots, it's likely she won't be pulling them out at this range but be on the lookout, particularly for EX, and punish her if she tries it!

Up close:
Cassie has two major threat strings at this range: one iirc is a low,overhead and the other is a overhead,low. They can be quite tricky to block and she has a vortex at this range, so for now I'd advise playing the mid-long game on this one and zone her out.

D'vorah

Spoiler

Full screen:

Mid screen;

Up close:
Match footage:

Ermac

Spoiler

Full screen:
Avoid any kind of projectile zoning due to his tele punches. Instead, bait and wait - telepunches are hella punishable on block.

Mid screen:
Here your spacing is crucial; from a particular range (about 3/4 character spaces away) any blocked telekenetic slams from E mac can be punished with either dash in combos or advancing strings - any further than that sweet spot and you won't reach him in time. Slide will get grabbed by any telekenetic slams, so don't bother.

If he tries any levitating crap, Gunslinger AA is perfect for popping him out the sky (maintain that 3/4 character spacing to ensure 100% accuracy on this) Marksman may be able to db2/db4 him but I have yet to try it. Alternatives are caltrops and potentially meeting him air to air.


Up close:
WIP

Ferra/Tor

Spoiler

Full screen:

Mid screen:
Up close:
Match footage:

Jacqueline Briggs

Spoiler

Full screen:
Mid screen:
Up close:

Jason

Spoiler

Full screen:
Mid screen:
Up close:

Format and info is subject to change, place holding for now.

 

[Pakman]

Sonya

Spoiler

Full screen:
Her Ring toss hits for 5% and on hit gives her decent frame advantage. Marksman low shot out damages her and causes knockdown giving you the advantage. In all 3 variations, Erron can use the sand rolling grenade (bf3 hits for 9%) to out damage Sonya's ring toss significantly and cause a knock down. However, this all depends on who currently has zoning advantage: if Sonya's ring toss is already on the screen, you do not have the advantage and you won't have time to get any of your projectiles out --> you will get hit if you try and Sonya will retain zoning advantage. To get this back, you will have to duck/neutral jump her ring toss's until she stops or jump over her ring toss and move closer. Sand grenade causes knockdown and does 9%, you only need one to regain zoning advantage.

After you have gained zoning advantage, expect a dive kick...


Mid screen:
Dive kick and her hand spring are 2 big things you have to respect at this range. Db4, Gunslinger money shot and SOS 2 (AA) can stop that but you have to be very quick with your reactions and your spacing.

It is risky to use any of the Marksman or Gunslinger SOS 3/4 at this range (although SOS 4 on reaction to dive kick is perfectly doable, SOS 2 not so much...), you'll need to pace back and forwards to bait out and punish her Dive kick/Hand spring options. Caltrops are always effective at this range, so be sure to set them up when you get a chance - and even if she evades its free meter whichever way you look at it. Also, your travelling strings - f122 are extremely effective for blowing up her dive kick.

Sonya's ring toss is a viable threat at this range too, so be on the look out - if you have meter, enhanced slide for 16% knock down is always worth it. If not, jump over her projectile and full combo for the win. If you find yourself in that spot where you are unable to jump in punish her ring toss nor hit her with anything in your arsenal, just crouch to avoid it.

Sonya's dive kick has significant push back on block, so you have to use f12 or other advancing strings to punish it properly. Also, if you don't block it and she misses, she will recover instantly - be prepared for follow up strings when she lands! This is especially problematic as Sonya can do dive kick at any point jumping forwards or backwards and in some stages where she essentially gets camouflaged with the background making it unclear as to where she will land.

Fortunately, f122 string has a good habit of either outright anti airing the dive kick or crushing it on it's way down. She bounces back on blocked dive kicks, so it's best to use f1 strings for punishing (can possibly use run cancel combos but have yet to try). Back-dashing into b4 is also an effective evade punish if you're anticipating a whiffed dive kick, but spacing wise it does leave you closer to her than block punishing...

Up close:
Sonya's parry is incredibly dangerous - it stops mids and highs, all crouching punches (including d2!) and will even stop sand tackle! Use low starters like b3 to blow up her parry, but be mindful of her options on wake up.

Handspring is an effective wake up option, so approach cautiously. Even if you are spaced correctly, her handspring can actually fly over you if you are ducking, allowing her to reset the spacing game in her favor

If she is running Covert ops, she has no low wake ups (leg grab is oddly a mid and not an overhead); you can therefore crouch block on her wake up in the corner and then keep her there for the remainder of the match (all of her wake up options at this range can be blocked crouching AND you can still full punish trolololol) . Mix this up with EBs multitude of lows (she can't punish b32d1) and overheads and it's good night Sonya Blade.

Sub zero

Spoiler

Full screen
You need to stay here for as long as possible, slowly chipping away at Subs health and building valuable meter for combo breaking (and for ex slide in case Sub gets you cornered) - remember 9% on clean hitting sand grenades means you only need 11 to KO him; every time he's at full screen, he's taking a couple of these - full or chip! Once he begins to respect the sand grenade, lay down caltrops and commence projectile zoning/

In Gunslinger, money shot really begins to shine as a viable and crucial tool for breaking ice klones, locking down sub, hitting him on ice blast start up and generally complimenting Errons keep away. It's not completely free zoning here, as a trade with ice blast will go in Sub's favour - but being able to lock down sub at full screen at all is a major factor winning this MU and with proper usage of money shot, you can get some surprising results!

Money shot is also really useful for stopping both slides and jump ins since you can change the bullet trajectory after inputting the command at the last moment, but your read game has to be on point.

If he is using Grandmaster, at full screen he will need to throw Ice Klones (all of your projectiles can actually stuff his start up at full screen), ice blasts (trades in his favor so play smart) or waste meter on EX slide (low profiles all of Erron's projectiles that aren't sand grenade, and activates too quick for Marksman to reaction low shot) to get to mid-screen. If you've got him to respect your zoning game, he will inevitably have to stop setting up klones and start advancing, and likely taking chip (~2.5% every sand grenade)

Mid screen;
Eventually Sub will get his way through to mid screen. Here you really have to watch out for his slide, which is: incredibly fast, low profiles a tonne of options (SOS follow ups are all extremely risky, although I've had success with SOS 3) and sets up his low/overhead mix up game. Fortunately you can punish it on block, and if you're spaced correctly a sand grenade will wreck his shit up. If you predict another on his wake up, at this distance you don't have the frames to do much so jump back 4 or Njp 1/2 are good tool for stopping him.

The other option you have to worry about is ice Klones (grand master only), if it's out he can throw it causing heavy damage on hit (the Klone itself has a weird arc, at a certain distance it will hit you if you either crouch to low profile it or jump to avoid it) /stagger you on block, and immediately follow up with a slide - or simply leave the Klone stationary, EX his slide and knock you into it.

Your ex slide will blow through ice blasts and ice klones (stationary or thrown) at a specific distance - the armour runs out before the slide has actually gone max distance, bare this in mind!

If he is using Unbreakable, projectile zoning becomes a lot harder since he will take no chip damage (you will still gain meter for blocked specials however) once he gets his ice buff running - it's not quite as easy to interrupt as Ice Klone sadly.

Although this variation does make it easier for Sub to get mid screen, his lack of Ice Klone prevents him from controlling the match flow (this is significantly noticeable); Ice parry is also poor man's version of Ice Klone, particularly when Erron's F4, or any aerial move for that matter, completely obliterates it.

Regardless of variation, you have to be especially cautious and ever ready for the slide - it is very fast (can't stress this enough), long reaching, knocks down and will beat yours!

Up close;
This is where Sub gets really scary; a long reaching overhead and that bitching slide set up an incredibly effective overhead/ low game, and if he's in grandmaster, any string he does he can cancel into ice Klone preventing any kind of whiff punishing; say bye bye to any advancing strings and hello to the corner cus that's where your arse is going to be for a while!

Fortunately, you should be sitting on meter (you don't really need to spend it very much at all in this MU aside from combo breaking, and if you've been playing it right, you should have plenty with all the sand grenades you've thrown) so bust out ex sand trap/slide as needed and get out of there!

Summary:
You want to maintain a full screen presence here, as even in Outlaw variation, Sub has to respect Erron's zoning capabilities (sand grenade, with 3,2 as a supplement). Don't go brain dead as one ice blast is all Sub needs to get in, but at the same time know that is his only option full screen.

At mid screen it's anyone's game, but as Erron you wants to force Sub back to full screen - punish slides with f132 for example, and play the full screen game.

Up close, Sub's quick slide and advancing overhead cause havoc in the footsie department, you need to be on your toes at all time. Prevent having to deal with this bs in the first place by playing the full screen game instead.

 

[Pakman]

Reserved just incase

 

[SquirtMcGirt]

I don't know if this is the right place for this as its not really match up specific but you can anti air in this game like you could in mk9. You can standing 1 a jip and then follow up with 2112dbf2 for 22% dmg. His d1 also aas crossups into the same situation for 22%. Sometimes if they jip early enough they can beat it, but they won't be able to link a string afterwards. At least in my testing so far. I didn't see a general discussion thread so I put this info here.

 

[Groove Heaven]

Played a long offline set against my friend today. Outlaw EB vs. Sun God Kotal Kahn, here are a couple notes I have on that MU...

-KK's f2 is pretty fucking good. In footsies it will beat most neutral and back jumps as well as backdashes. After blocking it I usually tried to check with d4 as Erron's f1 would get beat if he poked after I blocked his f2. I tried to space him out so he would whiff it and punished with f12 or 11

-njp is a great tool in this MU but I would only use it when you're pretty sure he's gonna do the command grab. At a certain spacing he can just f2 into full combo and beat your neutral jump attempt

-It's hard to anti-air him, I usually just resorted to uppercutting or backing up and doing dbf2 as he landed. I think EX sand throw (db4) is also a suitable anti-air in some situations? It worked for me 2 or 3 times

-If you knock him down, give him a little space and he's at the mercy of dbf2, f1, or njp

-If he's at low health, I like to put caltrops under him in the corner to end a combo. You can pressure him up close because if he wakes up or armors out with command grab he's just killing himself (it keeps him in place for a long time)

 

[Pakman]

^ Good stuff!

Sonya Sub Zero and Cassie MUS updated (still works in progress)

Due to the character limit on posts, I likely won't be able to cover all the MUs in the posts I've allotted (didnt realise this at the time) so I'll fill what I can in those and everyone/anyone else is welcomed to give their thoughts on the MUs as normal (I won't repost it in the first three posts) if you happen to post it before I do, I won't cover it. In the event that all the ones I end up covering fit in one, I'll merge the posts and remove any excess (of mine)

 

[Fractured_Shadow]

I can say that Marksmen Erron Black is going to wreck Reptile. I can comment on this from both sides seeing as I use both characters. Today I went full Reptile to see his strengths and weaknesses and found that he gets zoned hard. In this MU Erron can sit fullscreen and Unload or Long Shot until his heart is content and Reptile has to take alllll that chip. The only real option that Reptile has is to ATTMEPT to overhead flip his way in but the recovery on that is horrible. Additionally EB controls the footsie space that Reptile wants to occupy significantly better. Reptile has a terrible overhead that pretty much requires you to be sitting on your opponent and Erron can blow him up simply by blocking low.

A note to remember in this MU is that Reptile can dash through caltrops. So unless you are setting them up at point black to help in poke/counterpoke range or setting up a corner trap they are useless.

 

[GroovyMango]

This isn't exactly match up specific but it's a good thing for Outlaw corner pressure. If you end a combo in F24 Caltrops, you have massive advantage to get ready to do any mixup you want. Now if you do B32 and then see the blocked the first hits, you can do D1 to get the spin back shot. If they block that, pressure is over, but you're far enough where few characters can punish, unless they're prepared to. If they get hit, you're at +11. Now Outlaw has the beautiful F22 string, that is perfect for this situation, since there will be a 3 frame gap there between the +11 wearing off, and the F2 hitting, and then the second hit is 0 on block, which is amazing. If they block it, you're back in there, pressuring them in the corner at advantage again. If they get hit, you do the third hit and cancel into either Stab or command grab. Your choice!!

I played a bunch of games against my friend's D'Vorrah. He was still learning so I didn't learn as much as I could've but I did take some things from it. Her nj2 range is crazy good, so be careful, same with her D2. If you see her starting either her low bug move, or the one where she throws the bug, slide at her asap. Slide is fast enough where it will start tracking and just whiff, or just run the low bug move so you get a real combo punish. Also she has a string which is an overhead, followed by a launcher. Be careful of that, it's fast, and it's also -7 on block, which means it's really -6, so we can't punish it. Don't let her start pressure again after though. Begin your game.

Honestly slide seems to be an amazing move, it gets us forward quickly, low profiles a bunch of stuff, getting us punishes and closing space very quickly.

 

[Pakman]

I'm having difficulty in the Ermac MU. His telekenetic grabs halt any kind of string pressure/slide and he has a teleport, so projectiles are out of the question.

Not sure how to approach this one

 

[SaJa]

Did you try the gunslinger (keeping away) variation against Kung Jin ? >) Works like a charm.

 

[lionheart21]

Looking forward to seeing a mirror match write-up.

 

[Kanalratte]

any tips against kung lao? i was fighting several kung lao the last days. the problem is his speed. erron black feels like a tank compared to him. mostly i get under pressure the whole match, and i cannot punish shit because his recovery is insane (maybe it's also the lag) even if i block some combos he just jump over and continues a new one.

 

[Dukmunky]

Kung Jin is murdering me. He has great Mixups and better range than outlaw.

 

[FOREVER EL1TE]

any tips against kung lao? i was fighting several kung lao the last days. the problem is his speed. erron black feels like a tank compared to him. mostly i get under pressure the whole match, and i cannot punish shit because his recovery is insane (maybe it's also the lag) even if i block some combos he just jump over and continues a new one.

Just punish kung Lao. Do a njp if you suspect a jump over from pressure and always block high

 

[lionheart21]

I got destroyed online today by a Jax player using his Pumped Up variation. Anybody got any suggestions on how to fight against Jax?

 

[Groove Heaven]

I got destroyed online today by a Jax player using his Pumped Up variation. Anybody got any suggestions on how to fight against Jax?

I came here to make that exact same post.

It's so hard to poke out of his pressure. I'd wait until he was really just throwing a lots of lows and either try d1 or just do EX sand toss and hope he poked again. I'm also having a lot of trouble getting through zoning this early in the game's life. I did a lot of walking him to the corner and trying to react to ground pounds with run~f12

I'm also having trouble against Kitana when she zones me out. I like EX slide but it only gets you so far

 

[Pakman]

Kitanas fans are highs, so duck

In all 3 variations, Erron can contest them with bf3 sand grenade at 9% each and causing a knock down. You may end up trading (favourably by 3%) once or twice before you can get into a rhythm where you can meaty them on wake up.

Keep note, if her fans have passed half screen and you then input the bf3 command, her fans will hit you on start up interrupting the sand grenade. In these cases duck and immediately input the command after the fans leave the screen - if she tries a fan toss follow up (or anything other than blocking or jumping), she's eating 9% and now you have the zoning advantage.

I'm gonna upload a zoning video showing how to contest different projectiles by end of the week. Was planning on a sub zero match up vid also but in game match replay is being silly

 

[SaJa]

Guys how do you get out from Kano Cybernetic's b1 (looks like it's 9f, 0 on block but hell, worse than JC's f3 to get out !) ? I Got only slide and db4 (outlaw) armored, I can't backdash either. Poke or standing 1 seem not constant. x(

 

[SaltShaker]

Guys how do you get out from Kano Cybernetic's b1 (looks like it's 9f, 0 on block but hell, worse than JC's f3 to get out !) ? I Got only slide and db4 (outlaw) armored, I can't backdash either. Poke or standing 1 seem not constant. x(

Slide. You should be able to backdash the second one if it's back to back B1's as well.

Since we have to deal with all your Outlaw bs it's only right.

 

[SaJa]

Slide. You should be able to backdash the second one if it's back to back B1's as well.

Since we have to deal with all your Outlaw bs it's only right.

Erron Black backdash sucks. Try yourself, you will eat the b1.

 

[KNX]

Slide. You should be able to backdash the second one if it's back to back B1's as well.

Since we have to deal with all your Outlaw bs it's only right.

Nope not reliable. The Cyber Kano BS seems to beat out the Outlaw Erron BS pretty comfortably.

@SaJa best options for me are d+1 (if you time it right, it'll get a trade at worst but gets you out of pressure) and EX db+4 (riskier but if the Kano is throwing them out carelessly, you get a free combo)

 

[SaltShaker]

Nope not reliable. The Cyber Kano BS seems to beat out the Outlaw Erron BS pretty comfortably.

Let's not get too crazy now.

 

[Pakman]

Ex db4 gets you out of Kano's b1 if you are in outlaw.

EX slide in all variations can get you out of it

You can also x-Ray out of it.

Otherwise, you have no options. D1 the timing is too strict - if you miss time it you get hit.

Shit needs nerfing. -5 on block OR give it some pushback on block.

 

[RM Jonnitti]

Ex db4 gets you out of Kano's b1 if you are in outlaw.

EX slide in all variations can get you out of it

You can also x-Ray out of it.

Otherwise, you have no options. D1 the timing is too strict - if you miss time it you get hit.

Shit needs nerfing. -5 on block OR give it some pushback on block.

would d1 be a good option since you can hold block and press a button and it will come out on the first available frame after block stun? sounds like you can mash out of it

 

[Pakman]

Mashing too unreliable and not fast enough - you need 1 frame to recover from your own block stun.

And there's little pushback on Kano's b1 so you're constantly eating chip.

I'll upload a vid later today showing how dumb this is.