Eddy Wang
Skarlet scientist
The concept of Meaty
Let us look at this way: A group of kids are playing soccer in the yard, and one of them, kicks the ball towards your door. And at this exact moment, you’re heading out for work, and the second you open the door and step out, you see a soccer ball this close to hit you on the spot, that you’re forced to protect yourself rather than try to walk back in and close the door before this happens, or avoid by stepping aside or ducking.
In fighting games, there is a similar scenario, which is called meaty. It has the main purpose of using an attack that will hit the opponent on its later frames while he is waking up forcing him to block such attack that will give you frame advantage if he blocks, but much more if it hits.
This perk has been present in today fighting games, Ibuki is the type of character that her offense based game is designed around jumping with every gained hard knockdown, it primarily gives her room to setup a meaty trap with her kunai which everyone tends to look for once they’re knocked down, but also sets up ambiguous crossups, or empty jumps into overheads, lows, throws, or simply jump into the opponent’s head when they’re thinking is a empty jump into low or throw.
Not every character is based around meaty traps, although its heavily dependable of how the wakeup mechanic of the game work, there are still fighting games where meaty can be a very dangerous setup.
What is really happening during a meaty attack?
- 1. The main concept is character dependable, most characters that are able to perform meaty attacks gain a real reason behind a successful meaty trap.
- 2. Has a high possibility of disabling wakeups attacks if timed correctly.
- Meaty traps happens at the same time the wakeup window is allowed, it can scramble off your wakeup attack if the attacks hits before you finish to input your invincible move.
- 3. It adds a heavy mixup wakeup game which can be very advantageous to the attacker, specially if the same has multiple options derived from a single movement.
In MK9, the wakeup system is designed to give a fully invincible window on time to avoid most of the meaty attacks, also the invincible window is so big that is really hard to hit someone without longer active frames specials or attacks, like projectiles. But the MK9 knockdown system doesn't have an invincible option like in street fighter's case, at the moment someone touches the ground, they become invulnerable.
In MK9 the moment a character touches or its about to touch the ground, this character can be meated out before the wakeup window appears.
Skarlet using a meaty dagger on Cyrax at the exact frame he touches the ground to continue pressure while disabling wakeups
Skarlet using a meaty dagger on Kabal after a knockdown to prevent a wakeup
That is why Skarlet took major advantage of this feature, while other characters would only get an OTG off of a breaker with d3 to disable wakeups, Skarlet would gain a bigger hitstun to frame trap them as if she was performing a 112 reset while disabling wakeups. Which in consequence lead into her pressure options.
In Street Fighter, this concept exists ever since, back in 1994(?), it was a way to finish characters on the knockdown, with a meaty projectile that they were forced to wakeup onto, since the meaty occurs on the window your wakeup becomes active, you were forced to block and hold while the opponent mixes from the longer blockstun the game had with a throw that was virtually inescapable back then.
On Today’s Street Fighter, Wakeup invincibility window frames is so small, and it doesn't carry through the move, in SF4 if you use your invincible move to wakeup, the wakeup animation is replaced with your invincible move, and the wakeup invincibility is also replaced with the move you used.
Eddy Wang using an very ambiguous meaty kunai (hits on front) against DarkSlayerSmith
So for these reasons, in SF4 you can mix someone from the knockdown with crossups, or empty jumps into, low etc. Because wakeups are only invincible with meter, and not all of them are fully invincible. If they fail to input a reversal or counter on the wakeup window, the meaty hits.
Sakonoko anti-airing into a meaty kunai for a reset against Ryan Hart:
Not only today you can use meaty attacks against knockdown only, but you can find ways to restand them into meaty attacks which will mostly hit if the active frame will collide with their hurtbox on the window they are allowed to start inputing a counter.
Sako taking advantage of the flow chart to finish a game with a meaty hien (super as a backup in case he bocked)
its a measure that its hardly taken into account that will mostly catch players off guard that in most cases they will act according to the flow chart, in general cases, unexpected blocking, mashing out counters.
NuckleDU using a meaty reset against someone trying to mash a counter
In Injustice, Martian Manhunter, had a nice way to land a knockdown into a meaty Orb, that players were often forced to time their backdashes on wakeup to escape the setup.
Jupiter using a meaty orb after a soft knockdown to get a free dash in against Sonic Fox
There is multiple ways of mixing up a knocked opponent when a meaty trap becomes your primary weapon, in general, people who are facing a meaty character, generally look for the meaty mainly, which is considered following a flow chart, and much less for all other options the character might have, so the chance of hitting them with things they don't even know its there is also bigger.
Jupiter faking a meaty orb, sonicfox follows the flow chart and find himself into another orb in front of him
Using meaty attacks is something I’ve been looking to every since I started playing competitively in any fighting game, and was the reason why I go interested heavily in SF4 in the later years, I wasn’t that interested on the game until the day I watched a compilation to what I think to be one of the greatest asian players to ever exist, Sakonoko.
He was the Cammy hero and Ibuki hero, and his style is what got me to understand these concept further, and later include in MK9 with Skarlet, having learned the possibility of OTG any character in the cast with meaty daggers, got me a upper hand in the mixup game against my adversaries through the MK9 life span since 2012 to 2014 undefeated.
If you happen to main a character that has meaty options and they turn out to be really good, then I suggest you to learn them, it can change the way you approach to a game with a new whole horizon of mixing up on knockdowns.
Below the video that took me into the meaty world, The Best of Sako, to those who haven’t seen it before have a look of how Sako lands the Cammy’s dive kicks on the wakeup window to blow wakeups, or do the early enough to land safely and blocks the wakeup, he also mixes between empty jump or crossup when they’re expecting dive kicks, or he does a really late dive kick when the opponent is expecting a empty jump into throw. Or how he setups with Ibuki innumerous mixups, that can lead anyone into frustration when they have so much to worry about with every knockdown.
And in this second video, you can see how His Ibuki has grown using meaty to mixup on knockdowns, not only with kunais, but with everything else he could find to mix someone up, same concept applicable with Evil Ryu and Gen in this same video.
That’s it for today, hope you guys enjoyed, and look forward to have other players around who understands the concept as well, because in MKX we will probably have meaty characters too.
Inspired by Protagonist _1
