What's new

Match-up Discussion Reptile Matchup Discussion Thread

Briggs8417

Salt Proprietor of TYM
That's pretty much CSZ matchup in a nutshell. Punish any blocked divekick, EX forceballs are a godsend, and your oki game is key to baiting out errant parries.

The main 2 matchups I'm not sold on being 4-6 opponent is Skarlet and Shang. Reptile controls too much of the screen against Shang and blows up his wakeup really well. Shang really wins the matchup in your face, where you have to play dash-and-a-dream or guess right and armor out. And I don't think Skarlet's tools are actually that much of a deterrent from Reptile playing how he wants to play. Reptile has counters to her counters for his gameplan, and in the end, it just evens out.
Reptile doesn't control any part of the screen, he can't zone and when he gets in SS range you have to guess with dashes just like you do up close. Knockdown makes things easier but that that's pretty much the only perk. Sounds just like the LK MU to me. Idk it could be just because I play the MU really badly, but when I play cowboy that shit feels hopeless. He 5-0'd me in a casual set at FR.

With Skarlet I absolutely will never see 5-5. Reptile can't throw projectiles unless he burns meter, even then it's only from a certain range. His Oki game is not really there either unless you burn meter as well. Not so much because skarlet has good wake ups, but they just counter what we trying to do well. Getting in is retarded, but once you're in things get better.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
 

THTB

Arez | Booya | Riu48 - Rest Easy, Friends
Reptile doesn't control any part of the screen, he can't zone and when he gets in SS range you have to guess with dashes just like you do up close. Knockdown makes things easier but that that's pretty much the only perk. Sounds just like the LK MU to me. Idk it could be just because I play the MU really badly, but when I play cowboy that shit feels hopeless. He 5-0'd me in a casual set at FR.

With Skarlet I absolutely will never see 5-5. Reptile can't throw projectiles unless he but.s meter, even then it's only from a certain range. His Oki game is not really there either unless you burn meter as well. Not so much because skarlet has good wake ups, but they just counter what we trying to do well. Getting in is retarded, but once you're in things get better.

Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
It's WoundCowboy. You better be the ace of Reptiles to take him on lol. SS is really risky vs Reptile for the simple fact that the random second hit being blocked means Shang already starts off morphed in a pretty dumb spot...knocked down. And guess dashes are strong for the simple fact that Shang is weak to the wakeup game, so it's not like having to guess dash is terrible. It gets us in an amazing spot. Also, haven't tried, but pretty sure EX acid hand works wonders in dealing with his GS pressure.

Skarlet, again Skarlet counters things Reptile can do, but Reptile has counters for those counters. Skarlet can't just iaCD on Reptile...Reptile can always stand outside of the max range and spit that, or he can EX acid hand. Her ground daggers are too slow, now, and she can't just keep throwing them, and if Reptile is on point with duckdash, she has to EX RD to stop his duckdash that he might do to blow up ground dagger followed by RD slide, which he can deal with by doing EX dash instead of regular. And LBSH, u3 to blow up Reptile completely is false. Because only in a perfect scenario will you react in time to avoid a projectile on the u3 whiff with teleport. It beats dash on a guess. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure Reptile can punish her teleport on hit (She's -11). It's all reads in this matchup, and both characters have their points. She counters his meterless game, but he has solid counters to her meter game with his own.
 
Reactions: RYX
Sheeva: 7-3
Baraka: 7-3
Stryker: 7-3
Cyber Sub: 6-4
Ermac: 6-4
Jade: 6-4 7-3
Raiden: 6-4
Sindel: 6-4
Kano: 6-4
Quan Chi: 6-4 7-3
Scorpion: 6-4
Jax: 5-5 6-4 (its easy to get caught by jax's ground pound and projectile shenanigans, but reptile has a footsie advantage due to his low hitbox nullifying f4, not only that zoning is even if not in reptiles favor and reptile has plenty of mobility in this fight, its close ot even but reptiles hitbox gives him the advantage)
Kitana: 5-5
Nightwolf: 5-5 7-3 (forceball cancelling gives nightwolf absolutely 0 options in this matchup this is atleast a 6-4)
Noob: 5-5
Rain: 5-5 6-4 (i dont see how this could be considered even, ever.... rain doesnt have very many options in this matchup particularly)
Sub Zero: 5-5 6-4 (reptile outzones him and has better pressure punishment and mobility in this matchup and should never get cornered but when he does he has above average escapes including ex forceball and armored slide, once reptile has momentum this matchup isa nightmare for sub)
Mileena: 5-5 4-6 (if you can make this matchup even, kudos, i think it requires really good usage of dash forward dash backward punishes, or dash forward f2 backwards)
Sektor: 5-5 6-4 (there is no way in tarnation this matchup is even, this is downplaying if you think it is or you need more matchup experience, reptile gets around sektors zoning with ease, and sektor has NO answer for d4, so long as you dont get your ass punished, because sektor punishes hard, you control the match, all you have to do is carefully rushdown, and mix in ex fbs from time to time to get a spacing advantage, sektor cant instant air those on reaction whatsoever)
Smoke: 5-5 6-4 (the only thing that would make this matchup even would be smokes damage, once again, reptile can play a careful spacing/rushdown game and there is NOTHING smoke can do)
Cage: 4-6 5-5 (i believe this matchup is even, i have extensive experience on both sides, reptile has too much open space to implement his game plan, he has to go in periodically, which is a slight risk, but cage cant react to it unless he knows and makes a huge read your dash isnt going to hit and that you are going to do it... its tough to escape his pressure and deal with his options after acid hand, however i believe elbow dash is a great escape, although punishable, the threat of it is what counts.... i think reptile has such a severe spacing advantage that it makes the matchup even, otherwise its a difficult matchup, but if played with the proper spacing cage can get zoned out hard and blown up by grab mixups and lame down4 spacing or whiffed dashes straight into pressure/grabs)
Freddy: 4-6 (this matchup could be 3-7, reptile has 0 options at full screen and literally has to take a jump periodically or do something punishable, which on reaction can be ex clawed for 40%, not only that even if jump over a projectile you can still be punished if you werent way ahead of it... its a tragically bad guessing game that you can be punished for doing something smart and freddy still has good options in the footsie game and standing 2 is a 10 frame punisher. and can whiff punish your down 4s with nightmare stance or claws, and also whiff punish your elbow dash... at a realistic level ill stick to 4-6 but at a high level its 3-7)
Kabal: 4-6 (this matchup is bad, reptile is one of the top cahrs to fight kabal with, but kabal dominates the spacing game and can shut down reptile and exploit his weaknesses)
Kenshi: 4-6 5-5( forceball cancelling makes this matchup even stevens, reptile has great mobility and can blow up kenshis zoning, kenshi is force to rushdown with shoulder)
Liu Kang: 4-6 5-5 (i hold the belief, from extensive experience on both sides, that if this matchup is in anyones favor it is in reptiles favor, reptile can dash under high fireballs, and all he has to do is trade a spit with a low fireball, pump out a slow ball and he has the zoning advantage, in the neutral zoning game reptile has the option of punishing fireballs from full screen with a dash jump.... when reptile gets the zoning advantage his risk/reward/options are beyond superior to liu kangs.... the only place this matchup is bad in for reptile is the up close game because liu has a lethal mixup game and is neutral after everything.... but it is even hard as shit for liu to deal with reptiles knockdown pressure and grab mixups and pressure himself, he has no followup to d4 acid hand that beats out reptile... hes forced to try and whiff punish too much... the zoning game can switch sides a lot in this.... but reptile has much better risk rewards and hes much better at dealing with liu kangs zoning then liu is with dealing with his, and his zoning reaps benefits... and when liu gets knocked down he is fucked vs reptile... reptile has a million wakeup crossup setups and zoning and spacing setups)
Shang Tsung: 4-6 5-5 ( this matchup could be in reptiles favor... shang is forced to guess a lot in the zoning game.... reptile has easy ways around.... this matchup is similar liu kang and johnny in the fact that reptile has a tough time with shangs rushdown... but his d3 is viable for the poke or counter-poke guessing game and he does have shitty armor as an option.... whats also similar to liu kang is that once reptile gets a knockdown shang tsung is dicked and once reptile obtains the zoning advantage its very difficult for shang... my argument for this being in shangs favor would be soul steal from max range being a tough option to deal with and when converted to the mirror match shang can do a ton of damage quickly.... other than that this matchup feels very riskky and guessy for both characters and its probably in reps favor at the highest level because hes 2 damn good at dealing with zoning)
Skarlet: 4-6 (not familiar enough with to form an opinion, understand that skarlet probably is really good at being an armored bitch and getting around zoningand annoying him with daggers and making him kind of stuck sometimes... she would theoretically fuck his spacing up)
Kung Lao: 4-6 (this is a pain in the balls, theoretically i have an answer to kung laos randomness but realistically this matchup is bad.)
Cyrax: 3-7 4-6 (reptile has to be super patient in this matchup and cyrax does tons of damage... that being said cyrax has to come to you and if played at tip-top level of reactions and zoning reptile can totally start a zoning game and win this fight.. but cyrax has too many opportunities to trade for me to call it even.... i dont think its 3-7 though.... its just much harder to play rep in the matchup.)
Sonya: 3-7 (ill leave this number, but i think its probably 4-6 at the highest (f2 punishes divekickS?) but i will say if rep gets his zoning going he can win, but sonya is a cunt)






so that leaves in my opinion reptile with mileena freddy kabal skarlet lao cyrax and sonya as bad matchups, with only one 3-7 being sonya and two potential 3-7s freddy and cyrax...... this makes him in the 6-9 range
 

Briggs8417

Salt Proprietor of TYM
It's WoundCowboy. You better be the ace of Reptiles to take him on lol. SS is really risky vs Reptile for the simple fact that the random second hit being blocked means Shang already starts off morphed in a pretty dumb spot...knocked down. And guess dashes are strong for the simple fact that Shang is weak to the wakeup game, so it's not like having to guess dash is terrible. It gets us in an amazing spot. Also, haven't tried, but pretty sure EX acid hand works wonders in dealing with his GS pressure.

Skarlet, again Skarlet counters things Reptile can do, but Reptile has counters for those counters. Skarlet can't just iaCD on Reptile...Reptile can always stand outside of the max range and spit that, or he can EX acid hand. Her ground daggers are too slow, now, and she can't just keep throwing them, and if Reptile is on point with duckdash, she has to EX RD to stop his duckdash that he might do to blow up ground dagger followed by RD slide, which he can deal with by doing EX dash instead of regular. And LBSH, u3 to blow up Reptile completely is false. Because only in a perfect scenario will you react in time to avoid a projectile on the u3 whiff with teleport. It beats dash on a guess. Not to mention, I'm pretty sure Reptile can punish her teleport on hit (She's -11). It's all reads in this matchup, and both characters have their points. She counters his meterless game, but he has solid counters to her meter game with his own.
We can just agree to disagree about guess dashing. The risk reward is just never in Reptile's favor when put into that situation unless it's against a character that has trouble punishing it. As for Skarlet, she has absolutely no need to iacd because she can just dagger cancel all day. It's too fast, if skarlets are throwing out daggers that slow it's on them. Yozu have to have meter in order to do anything serious in this MU. Also, U3 does destroy Reptile when she is in, we can do anything about it, and if we try we eat a dagger. Skarlet has no reason to do anything in this MU other than sit back and throw grounded daggers and punish anything we try to do to get in unless we burn meter to make it worth our while.
Sent from my PG86100 using Tapatalk 2
 

cR WoundCowboy

WoundCowbae <3
After doing some thinking, I now have Shang beating Reptile. As has been mentioned, SS is really good against Reptile because it forces him to try and react with a dash, which opens him up to other options. BTW, the "second hit of the SS" thing is wrong. Shang cannot be punished after it is blocked. Another problems is that Reptile's whole game is pretty much setting up force balls so that he can pressure and/or make his dash safer. The problem is that if Shang guesses right with a downpoke while Rep is pressuring, he not only gets out of Rep's pressure but also sets up his own. The guessing games are in Shang's favor imo.
 

NRF CharlieMurphy

Kindergarten Meta
After doing some thinking, I now have Shang beating Reptile. As has been mentioned, SS is really good against Reptile because it forces him to try and react with a dash, which opens him up to other options. BTW, the "second hit of the SS" thing is wrong. Shang cannot be punished after it is blocked. Another problems is that Reptile's whole game is pretty much setting up force balls so that he can pressure and/or make his dash safer. The problem is that if Shang guesses right with a downpoke while Rep is pressuring, he not only gets out of Rep's pressure but also sets up his own. The guessing games are in Shang's favor imo.
Wouldn't that just be another reversal after you do a downpoke into GS?
Wouldn't you doing a downpoke~GS or whatever pressure you chose, give out aht... and then let me guess? To me thats an even trade. We both are rewarded for our good guesses....

15 frames is considered "unseeable" by the FGC.... so -15 with fast recovery is VERY hard to punish unless you're looking for it to happen. If you're always looking for one thing... and he does another... you react late.

Anyway... I don't see how Shang has any type of advantage in the MU at all. I think you being the absolute best Shang.... and people not knowing how to fight him (yes this does matter) skew your opinion. Which is totally fine. Keep being the best, and let us try to prove you wrong.
 

cR WoundCowboy

WoundCowbae <3
Wouldn't that just be another reversal after you do a downpoke into GS?
Wouldn't you doing a downpoke~GS or whatever pressure you chose, give out aht... and then let me guess? To me thats an even trade. We both are rewarded for our good guesses....

15 frames is considered "unseeable" by the FGC.... so -15 with fast recovery is VERY hard to punish unless you're looking for it to happen. If you're always looking for one thing... and he does another... you react late.

Anyway... I don't see how Shang has any type of advantage in the MU at all. I think you being the absolute best Shang.... and people not knowing how to fight him (yes this does matter) skew your opinion. Which is totally fine. Keep being the best, and let us try to prove you wrong.
My point it that it is a shitty guess for Reptile. When I land a poke, he pretty much has to respect my follow up unless he is going to use a YOLO dash or armor. The match is evenish at mid and full screen and skewed in Shang's favor up close. Reptile pretty much has to put him self at risk since much of his game revolves around setting up pressure. Shang has answers to Rep's pressure, while Rep has very few answers to Shang, most of which are risky. BTW I do play against one Reptile who knows how to fight against Shang, the one who taught me the MU.
 

NRF CharlieMurphy

Kindergarten Meta
My point it that it is a shitty guess for Reptile. When I land a poke, he pretty much has to respect my follow up unless he is going to use a YOLO dash or armor. The match is evenish at mid and full screen and skewed in Shang's favor up close. Reptile pretty much has to put him self at risk since much of his game revolves around setting up pressure. Shang has answers to Rep's pressure, while Rep has very few answers to Shang, most of which are risky. BTW I do play against one Reptile who knows how to fight against Shang, the one who taught me the MU.
Thats a fair assessment, actually.
I see it as evening itself out.... however, I get your side.... once you get in... you are in MORE control of what happens.

ExForceballs have to be a pain for shang to deal with. The slow one gives Reptile like 8 options that you have to account for.
 

cR WoundCowboy

WoundCowbae <3
Thats a fair assessment, actually.
I see it as evening itself out.... however, I get your side.... once you get in... you are in MORE control of what happens.

ExForceballs have to be a pain for shang to deal with. The slow one gives Reptile like 8 options that you have to account for.
The only forceball Shang has to deal with is the fast version. If Reptile goes for the slow he will be soul stealed, which will waste his meter and cause him to eat damage. Shang can hit Reptile out of every version of forceball.
 

NRF CharlieMurphy

Kindergarten Meta
The only forceball Shang has to deal with is the fast version. If Reptile goes for the slow he will be soul stealed, which will waste his meter and cause him to eat damage. Shang can hit Reptile out of every version of forceball.
thats if i dash

I mean... what would you do if I did exSlow then spit?
 
He can do to Reptile what he does to SZ..... just effin stand there. such a dumb freaking character to fight.
Kenshi can actually rush that shit down if he wanted too lol. Reptile also gets fucked in the corner cause kenshi armor on sc is thicker than slide lol.
Yeah its shitty lol. Of all my characters though i feel most comfortable in this with reptile
 

NRF CharlieMurphy

Kindergarten Meta
Kenshi can actually rush that shit down if he wanted too lol. Reptile also gets fucked in the corner cause kenshi armor on sc is thicker than slide lol.
Yeah its shitty lol. Of all my characters though i feel most comfortable in this with reptile
In short sets you can "trick" your way through some of his stuff an win.
But I have NEVER won a ft5 against a good Kenshi. They figure out that they can just wait me out.
I want them to rush me down.... at least I can punish SC at point blank.
 
In short sets you can "trick" your way through some of his stuff an win.
But I have NEVER won a ft5 against a good Kenshi. They figure out that they can just wait me out.
I want them to rush me down.... at least I can punish SC at point blank.
Unless you are 50 steps ahead of a kenshi, winning a ft5 is hard. As THTB has said before, you better be the ace of reptiles lol. If we are going by highest level, pig is hands down highest level kenshi and i don't know any reptiles that can tack a ft5 on him lol. Fucking impossible i say