Under Night In-Birth/UNI2/Merkava/Strategy
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Disclaimer: This is a community written page and may contain opinions that not all players may agree with. Use at your own discretion.
General Gameplan
Merkava is fairly slow but his movement is very quick to change direction which makes him fairly unpredictable in neutral and pressure. His movement is fairly dependant on being able to keep your opponent from taking actions safely. This is where his zoner traits shine through; keeping your opponent at bay with 5C, 214x, j.A, j.B and fireballs. Once you get a good hit on your opponent you want to get them as close to the corner as possible to restrict their movement, then end the combo by setting up a mixup or worms of some sort. At this point you're playing a rushdown character. The worms act both as projectiles and objects that can be struck which freezes the attacker briefly.
Neutral
You want to spend as much time as possible in control of your opponent's movement. Try to keep them grounded and focus on gaining GRD by blocking or concentrating and depleting your opponent's GRD by baiting Green Shields or making them move back. A whiffed green shield will also put you in frame advantage more often than not. Merkava's game around frame advantage often relies on abusing his large moves to take back his turn on minus frames where your opponent cannot reach you safely.
Approach
Merkava's dash has basically no startup, meaning you can gain space in the smallest of gaps. This is your main tool to go forward when your opponent is close to mid range. When you're further away you can start using other options to move and keep your opponent from moving at the same time. Using moves in conjunction with dashing will slide merkava forward as the move comes out. Some good moves for this are 5B, 5C, 4B, dash assault and 5A if they're closer. If you get a hit midscreen that doesn't lead to corner, you can often set up worms that you can use as a threat to keep your opponent from counterattacking, you can use moves to put your opponent in blockstun and let the worm come in after to frame trap or you can use the worm hit as the pressure starter and attack right after to start up pressure. Having B, [B] or EX worms you can often let the worms create the frame traps for safer pressure.
Keep Away
5C
On block you cancel into either 5A or 214A. whiffing 5A makes 5C -5 on block which often lets you take your turn again. If the opponent tries to take their turn after 5C, following up with 214A beats almost all options they have. An opponent expecting 5C will be passive long enough for you to be able to get into flight or approach more safely.
Fireball
J.214b and j.214[B] are good for keeping your opponent from pressing large buttons as well as stopping jump trajectories by making them block. With the ability to freely drift in the air after the move, Merkava can choose to either go in or maintain distance. If you think there is a risk of your opponent dashing under your fireball, you can use j.214A/j.214[A] and drift back.
Flight
If you manage to get into flight safely, you have much better mobility that you can use to make your opponent second guess whether they'll be able to reach you. From flight you also have great use of j.B and j.A which both often confirm into some sort of combo.
214x
Merkava's grabby hands are very strong against certain neutral tools. 214A is great against grounded fireballs since it doesn't extend his hurtbox where the arm goes. 214B is a long range anti-air with good active frames. 214C is a really fast full screen punish against jumping or moves whiffing. Also Merkava's fastest move outside of throw.
Offense
Merkava has some of the most oppressive offense in the game, mostly thanks to his flight mixups and worms. From flight you can make it ambiguous whether you will land and hit them low or stay in the air and hit them high. Worms can lock down your opponent's movement extremely well and can keep them in blockstun for long enough that you can run your high/low game. They are also good starters for if your opponent tries to mash out. Most of Merkavas offense revolves around three steps. Neutral where you try to control space and force an error from your opponent. Pressure based on either throws, worms or both. Setup where you either go for high/low mixups or strike throw. Merkava also has the option to abuse flight mobility and his large jump normals to zone the opponent into the corner and make them take risks in order to get out or challenge his flight.
Pressure
Merkava's blockstrings are a bit less freeform than most other characters. A lot of his moves push him out to where he either cannot reset pressure with his fast moves or cannot threaten with throw.
With that said, Merkava is unique in the way that his 5B covers a space where most characters really have to commit early and heavily to challenge it. Being able to counterhit confirm 5B as well makes Merkava very scary to contest directly. An opponent forced to respect 5B allows Merkava to move more freely in neutral and makes it very difficult for the opponent to play an offensive GRD game since Merkava can run away and whiff punish pretty well. You also usually have the time to go into flight to improve your movement and gain access to better mix and plus frames. The best way to play around 5B is to try and whiff punish it or to get in close enough that Merkava has to commit to 5B 5C or something similar to stay safe or stay at the right range. The purpose of this is to get to block more of Merkava's moves as well as going forward. Both of which give you GRD and takes GRD from Merkava. If you get deep enough into Merkava's range you can start challenging 5B with quicker moves or force Merkava to use longer blockstrings in order to stay safe, giving you even more GRD. Merkava can mix up his pressure with 4B, 2C 5A and 66B to either cover off more options than 5B can or go in for more close-range pressure. Fireballs and jump normals are pretty decent at keeping the opponent out and buying time when you have a life/GRD lead. When you don't have vorpal you can also maintain a GRD lead by going in with 66B or 2C 5A and blocking some of the opponent's moves.
Throw
Merkava has a few primary ways that he can set up throws. The easiest being 2A, 5A, 66B and 623A. Outside of those you've got jump normals, specials into CS and fireballs. Merkava's strongest tool for throws and in general is worms. Worm timings can be very unpredictable, especially with moves hitting around the same time. This makes it very difficult for the opponent to know if they blocked 5A for minus frames or worm for plus frames. If they mash, it's likely they'll get hit by either a reset or a worm. If they respect it, they're open for throws. even against reversals, worms eat their hit for a short moment which can allow Merkava to recover and block before it comes out fully.
Video explanation: Throws - What you need to know by DHD
Reset points
Merkava's reset points are in many ways connected to his throw game and revolves around the same moves and situations. He does however have options further out into mid and even long-range situations. Merkava has a lot of very fast moves for how big they are which is something the opponent needs to take into account when challenging Merk's resets. This means that after strings that end in things similar to 5C w5A or 3C j.214X you can use moves like 236A or 5B to keep your opponent out when they want to get in or 4B, 66B or dash 5A/2A/2B/4B to start up pressure again.
Common blockstrings
- 5A 2B 2C 5B 4B [-4]
- 2A 2B 2C 5A(A) [-3](-4)
- 5A 2C 623A [+1]
- 5C w5A [-5]
- 2A 2C 5B 5C w5A [-5]
- 66B -> Reset [-2]
- 66B 623A [+1]
Okizeme
Once Merkava has the opponent in the corner he does have some setplay potential. His main mixup is by setting up high/low from flight after certain knockdowns but he also has a ton of knowledge checks with worms that either requires your opponent to know exactly how that specific setup works or react to the frame advantage and act accordingly.
High/Low
"The way to do this set-up is to end a combo with 66C, then do flight with 77 and then start descending (usually with 3 to stay close to the opponent)
Low: keep going down and throw out j.A, the j.A whiffs because it comes out too early to meaty, then you can decide to meaty low, delay throw or bait reversals.
High: Go down then stop your descent by inputting any up input (7, 8 ,9) just above the ground, then meaty j.A or j.B."
-Merkava Primer CL-R by DHD
You can also set this up with 4B jump cancel if you've done a combo with no jumps in it. It is also possible from a lot of air-tech situations and other knockdowns in shorter combos.
Safe Jump
"The same set-up can be used to create a safe jump. The idea is that Merkava’s j.A has 2 frames of landing recovery and most reversals have around 5 frames of start-up. By landing just after the move becomes active, you can hit meaty and block 2 frames after.
The math adds up in the following way:
- j.A should hit, so at least 1f will have to be an active frame of the move.
- Adding the time it takes to get to the ground and the 2 frames of landing recovery. Done perfectly, there should be 3f before you can block.
- During the first frame after wake-up the opponent will get their reversal out.
- j.A whiffs due to the invulnerability frames of the reversal and Merkava enters landing recovery the frame after.
- Reversal start-up is usually about 5 frames meaning Merkava will be able to recover and block before the reversal becomes active.
The result is a meaty attack that doesn’t lose to reversals."
-Merkava Primer CL-R by DHD
Note that there are reversals with 3f of startup, meaning merkava will get hit during the last frame of landing recovery and not be able to block in time.
Meaty Worms
By doing 22C in a combo and then doing an ender you can time the opponent's wake-up with the first attack of the worms, giving you a free meaty attack without risking getting hit by reversals. This can also be combined with 4B jump cancel into high/low. Since the worms also stun the opponent briefly if they try to attack, you have more time to land and recover for a safe jump. Check out the document under Worm Setups for the specifics.
Worm Setups
Merkava worm guide (WIP) by OnyxDood and April
There's a lot of situations that you can force into your advantage with worms and even more that your opponent will allow you to do due to how the risk reward is skewed in your favour. In the document above you can find a lot of the documented setups but as time goes by you will learn to play more freeform around worm timings. A general rule of thumb is that worms take about two hits of 2A and 2 hits of 2B to come out. This means you can easily telegraph a setup with 2A and instead go for throw or low flight as they prepare to block the setup. This is fake but also requires very specific answers that most people have not labbed so if you can stay unpredictable, this will end up in Merkava's favour in the end.
Liquid Edge/Instant tech
4B gives hard knockdown in most situations but it's not guaranteed. From certain combos the opponent will actually tech out of the combo before they hit the ground. What Liquid Edge does is time the tech out exactly with when they hit the ground. It allows you to mix up the wake-up timing in a way that most players will not be ready for and still hit them meaty. This requires specific corner combos to work and has a few general rules.
The following combos show the general structure.
- 2A/2B (2) 5C 2CC 6[C] j.C j.A j.B 66C j.214[A] 66C 2C 4B
- 5A 2B (2) 5C 2CC 6[C] j.6D j.A j.B 66C j.214[A] 66C 2C 4B
- (4B) 66B link 2A 5C 2CC 6[C] j.C j.A j.B 66C j.214[A] 66C 2C 4B
- Assault j.C 2B 5C 2CC j.C j.A j.B 66C j.214[A] 66C 2C 4B
- Assault j.A CS j.B 2B (2) 5C 2CC j.C j.A j.B 66C j.214[A] 66C 2C 4B
- j.A 2A (1) 5A 2B (2) 5C 2CC 6[C] j.A j.B j.C 66C j.214[A] 66C 2C 4B
- j.B/j.C 2A (1) 2B (2) 5C 2CC 6[C] j.A j.B j.C 66C j.214[A] 66C 2C 4B
Gimmicks
tools that have situational, limited, or questionable usage
Defense
The best defense as Merkava is to never have to defend. Merkava's neutral is strong enough to stall out the most opponents' patience but you need to be ready to play passively when your opponent shows that they can combat your neutral. You don't have very good general defensive tools as Merkava but he has many specific answers that he can pull out as either hard reads or direct counters.
Blocking
You have a lot of tools but blocking is your best friend in most situations. Merkava can do a lot with green shield to change the spacing and 3C works very well as an emergency anti-air. Most of your moves are good but quite specialised. Knowing which move to use will depend on matchup knowledge and reads more than anything. Some characters will be able to consistently put you in situations where their moves beat your moves so to get the most out of your defense you need to try to change the way their offense works by dashblocking, shielding and/or waiting for a mistake.
Reversal Tools
- 236C
- 623C
- VO
When Merkava has meter, his defensive game changes a lot. with access to fairly good reversals it is up to you to make your opponent respect these options so that you don't need to use them. Merkava wants to always have meter in order to threaten with reversals and to really make his offense hurt as much as possible.
Option Selects
- 3C~AD: Anti-air/Throw tech
- 2AD: 2A/Throw tech
- 2B~AD: 2B/Throw tech
- 1~7~1C~AD: Divekick/Throw tech
- Delay 1~7~1C: Fuzzy divekick
- 236C~AD: Reversal/Throw tech
- 9~1AD~j.2C: Jump shield/Throw tech
- 2ABC~D: VO/Throw tech
- 4AB~D: Backdash/Throw tech
- 1AD: Blocking/Throw tech
- 4AD: Backthrow/Throw tech
- 2BC~AD: Anti-air/Throw tech.
- 236AD: Anti-air/Anti-backdash/Throw tech.
Counter Strategies
What to do against Merkava varies a lot depending on character so here are some general things to look out for.
- Learn how 5C 214A works and what to do against it.
- Look at jump back fireball and what to do against that.
- See what you can do against 623A being +1.
- Find gaps in Merkava's pressure where you can reversal.
- Being able to drastically change the spacing can catch Merkava off guard if he commits to a big move or tries to fly in the wrong situation.
- When Merkava has no meter, his defense is hampered to the point where you can bully him with stagger pressure and meaties.
- Merkava can punish some moves that a lot of characters struggle with. Take note of things you shouldn't be doing.
- Learning to punish 236C will help you get a lot more reward on offense.
Check the Anti-Merkava Guide by OnyxDood for more info.
