Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid/Kat Manx/Strategy
Strategy
In neutral, you want to play patiently and wait for an opening to start your offense. Kat is most effective at close range, so you want to stay outside of your opponent's effective range and use movement to trick your opponent into creating an opening, and then move in to start your pressure. Kat has a good wavedash ([M~L]xN or [L+M > down]xN), but if you are not comfortable wavedashing then her run is also quite fast. Pretend to move in and then back out with backdash or 4S. This may bait your opponent to use a slow move or put their assist on cooldown: being patient in your approach will give you openings. Similarly, you can pretend to back away with 4S or jump back, and then come back forward with 4SS or divekick. Kat is a very mobile character, so you want to take advantage of that to become unpredictable and make it hard for your opponent to know how to attack you.
When you see an opening and are ready to make your approach, you can move in with a plain run or dash, 6S, j.M, j.H, j.S, 4SS, or a dash quickly cancelled into 2M. When you do decide to approach, you can strike from several different angles and timings, so be sure to vary your approach and it will be difficult to keep you out, even for dedicated zoning characters. Some characters have difficulty dealing with j.S, and projectile characters have an extremely difficult time dealing with 6S. You may favor one approach or another depending on your opponent. Some assists, like Cenozoic Blue and Jen, can help to lock your opponent down and allow you to run in without fear of running into a big button. If your opponent is jumping a lot, you can either try to challenge them air to air with j.M or j.S, or you can run up to them on the ground and try to tag them with an air unblockable 4M (risky) or a grounded string when they land. If you are feeling fancy, you can use 2M to cross under them and make them block wrong. Some characters are difficult to challenge in the air, but almost nobody can challenge Kat divekick from the air if you can get above them. It is also difficult to stop Kat from getting very close ("almost in") on the ground while they are stuck in their jump arc.
As soon as you make your opponent block something on the ground, you want to call an assist to keep them locked in place. Most good players will pushblock you immediately, so get right back in with 6S, another approach tool listed earlier, or tagging to your assist that you already called in their face. You want to stick on top of the opponent and then open them up with staggered pressure, a throw, or a crossup. If you leave small gaps in your pressure strings, you may catch opponents trying to jab out, jump out, or use an unsafe invincible move. Kat's crossup tools are 6S + assist, j.M, j.S, and 2M on an airborne opponent. Ideally, you want to make the opponent worried about defending one option and then hit them with another. If they are hitting buttons trying to stop a throw attempt, you can use small gaps to counterhit them. If they are scared of staggers and are blocking everything, you can throw them or set up a crossup. Good pushblocking will force you to get back in all over again, if you fail to keep them locked down or re-approach immediately, but that's alright.
When you get a hit, it will either be death or good damage into corner pressure. On a knockdown or on the opponent's incoming, you can use your crossup tools and assists to make setups that are very difficult to block and will let you continue pressuring if they are blocked. If your combo will not kill and you want to be tricky, you can 5L the opponent to flip them out and perform a mixup on them when they are not expecting it: you have just enough time to dash 2M to the other side, or you can do same side, or throw.
On defense, you can sometimes use 4S to get out of weak pressure, but you should rely on good blocking and pushblock. Like most characters, EX is a high reward reversal: Swap Strike is lower reward but is safe. On your incoming, you can use divekick to call out bad setups, but it's generally better to block and then pushblock. When you have space, you can reset to neutral.
If Kat is bleeding, you want to tag her out so she can recover life. Her assist is only good if you are already close to the opponent or have them in a combo, but it is great in those cases. Just be aware that you will need to cover the gaps in her rekkas if you want your pressure to be airtight, but with some labbing you can use these gaps to trap your opponent, or set up crossups with things like Jen airdash or Blue/Quantum teleports.
Team Synergy
Kat can be played in any team position, but she does not have a strong round start. She has a great assist that works with almost any other character, great solo damage, and easy zord routes that make her ideal in the second or third slots on a team. These tools combined with her incoming 50/50s make her great for solo comebacks. Kat as the active character likes to have neutral or lockdown assists to help her close the gap, or damage engines to make TODs even easier.
