I think it's safe to say that a lot of us know most of the matchups by now. For the past week I've been utterly dominating, even against the more powerful characters. Just recently in the past 4 days, I've hit a wall. Almost every player I go up against, they turtle against Cage. They'll just sit there, crouch block literally everything, and anticipate grabs. I simply can't rely on grabs anymore to open guys up. My pokes don't have that much of an effect anymore, because they're always blocking low.
If I play against somebody who doesn't know Cage's matchup, but he's a good player, my ranked sets go something like this:
- I'll completely destroy the other player in the first match, to the point where I make him look like a beginner.
- Sometimes he switches characters. In the next match, I notice he's relying on spacing and projectiles. He now knows he can poke out of most strings, and he knows it's his turn to poke after F4. Still, I win the match by keeping my head and playing patiently, despite getting hit by a cheap fatal blow or several uppercuts.
- My opponent does one of two things: he either zones me out during the entire match, or he turtles. While turtling, all he does is wait for me to grab, breaks it, then responds with a combo. The only thing Johnny can respond with fast enough after a break is F3, but my opponent is always ready and pokes out of it.
- Brass knuckles are little to no help whatsoever. Brass knuckles seem to scare my opponent into zoning for the remainder of the match, jumping around like a madman, or non-stop attacking. They're always spacing, waiting for me to miss my wake-ups. The cycle continues.
- I get completely shut down. My only hope is to land 1 grab out of 20 attempts as he's always waiting for it. He reads Cage Rage like a book at this point. He comes back from 2-0 and wins 3 straight, leaving me pissed off and demoralized.
I hate to say this, but the old "Cage needs a damn overhead" thoughts are running through my head again. I'm back to going on losing streaks, and switching to my 2 other learned characters out of frustration. Many of you, especially Wrath, convinced me that F3 being a high wouldn't be a problem anymore so long as they add a few more frames to F4, and fix the hitboxes. I'm still on board, but Cage just can't answer to a lot of things. Forgive me for saying this, but would an overhead still be possible? Maybe change F43-make 3 an overhead? If you think I'm bullshitting you, please play against a good Jacqui or Cetrion.
Again, I'm still going to use Cage no matter what, but holy shit I'm pissed off. It bothers me that I couldn't do anything.
