Marvel vs Capcom 2/System

Marvel vs Capcom 2, like all fighting games has a series of basic commands you use to control your characters actions. These vary from normal moves, through special moves, to team moves or even ones with their own special abilities. Some of these commands are free, however others come at a cost of one or even five stocks of your super meter.

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Movement

Walking

Walking is the basic way of moving throughout the screen in traditional fighting games, however Marvel 2 is very different; people hardly ever walk to move around. Almost everyone has their own walking speed/rate. In some cases, it might be better to walk than to dash, although sometimes you don’t have a choice.

Dashing

Dashing (F,F or PP) will move your character forward at a certain rate/distance. Almost every character has their own unique speed/rate (there are 56 characters, so for all I know one or two may have the same speed/rate). Dashing is a very interesting tool, since it allows you to move forward and block right away. This might sound simple, but there are some characters who have a full screen dash and can pretty much follow you through out the whole match unless you have a way of avoiding them. Another interesting thing about dashes is that some characters like Gambit and Dr. Doom ‘hop’ instead of staying on the floor for the whole time. This means that they can hop over people’s low attacks and proceed to throw them or hit them and start their own combos/resets/other. Those characters who are technically in the air during their jump can actually still block during it, and when they block they'll be on the ground. You can cancel your dash with a normal, a super, special, tag, jump, block, super jump, throw (if you’re close), tap down. Since there are a lot of ways to cancel your dash, it's usually safe. However, there are a few things that can hit someone while they are dashing. Since tapping down can stop your dash and you can dash the very next frame after tapping down, you can do them over and over to Wave-dash and get through the whole stage very quickly. Wave-dashing can be used to get to a point of the screen that is normally not accessible if you were to dash and walk, or dash and attempt a move. Even those characters who hop when they dash can wave-dash. For some reason, when they do this and there is an attack already put out on the floor, they can still hop over it even!

G Conceptz put together a helpful guide on wavedashing.

Jumping

Normal Jumping is just an average jump that all characters have, some can jump high and relatively fast, while others slow and low (or the worst: slow and high). If you are fighting against someone that can Guard Break you easily, you’re better off not jumping at all. Unlike some other games, Marvel 2 does not have jump cancelling, but it does have Super Jump cancelling (or SJCing)

Something you should Always keep in mind is that jumping has several restrictions that limit your options in the air.:

- Most characters can only attempt to attack once during normal jump. This also means you can't link air normals, as a second attack isn't allowed. Attempting a link will either make you do a medium attack if you're too fast, or nothing if you're too slow.

- Depending on the character, their Magic Series chain gets shortened (compared to when they're Super Jumping).

- You can call assists during normal jumps, but not during super jumps.

- Flying Screen cannot be set.

- Special Moves cannot be cancelled into Hyper Combos. Normal attacks can still be cancelled into specials.

There are some cases (usually character-specific ones) where certain restrictions don't apply. Ideally(?) that information will be on the appropriate character's pages when people get to them.

You can attack 2-3 frames after the jump (with normals, specials, supers, and throws*), but you can typically only do one (unless you use cancels or character-specific options). Afterwards, you'll be unable to act until you land. You can also use character-specific options while normal jumping, like double (or triple) jumps, wall jumps, air dashes, and flight. You can air dash, but not for about 7-8 frames after you've jumped (why 2-3 not just 2 or 3? It's complicated and will be covered in another section). Flight can be done at any time during normal jumps.

• Certain throws allow the character to act afterwards, while others don't.

Different characters have different jump heights and fall speeds. For example, those with slower jumps: Anakaris, who takes a long time to land on the floor after jumping, which leaves him as an easy target to be guard broken (unless he's protected by an assist or he airdashes, although he can‘t block throughout the whole air dash...) Sentinel and Dhalsim have slower jumps, but also the ability to cancel into flight mode (and/or teleport, in Dhalsim's case) which help alleviate the longer travel time. Some of the other characters have a fast jump that don’t travel long distances, making their jump less useful generally. You have to find ways to effectively use their jumps in combos or other situations.

Double/Triple Jumps, Wall Jumps, and Teleports

A handful of characters can double (or triple) jump, wall jump, and teleport. They all offer additional movement and mixups and can also mess with or refresh the normal jump restrictions a bit. i'll come back to this

Super Jump

input down then up quickly

Super Jumping is a significantly higher jump that has less variance across the cast in terms of height and fall speed. Super Jumping has different, looser restrictions compared to the Normal Jump state. Compared to Normal Jumps, you can air dash after 5 or 6 frames but you can attack with a normal/special/super (for the most part, again, this is MvC2). Launchers, including both the universal 'down-forward and HP/HK' ones and those found on standing/crouching mediums/heavies, can be Super Jump cancelled on hit by simply pressing up after they connect, and allow the characters to transition into air combos.

Launchers aren't the only attacks that are super jump cancellable though- as it turns out, a lot of standing and crouching normals can be SJCd on hit, and some moves can even be SJCd *before* they connect! However, since those attacks aren't launchers, you'll have to *manually* input the super jump to SJC them, and the cancel window varies in size depending on the attack.

- You can attempt to attack infinitely until landing.

- You can do Magic Series chains infinitely until landing.

- You have access to your character's full aerial Magic Series chain.

- You *cannot* call assists.

- [Flying Screen] can be set.

- Special Moves can be cancelled into Hyper Combos.

- Attacks that connect on the way up will interrupt the momentum, effectively slowing the attacker down and allowing for more consistent combos.

Super Jump Guard Cancel

Super Jump Guard Cancelling (SJGC), also known as Suki Cancelling is the act of cancelling your Super Jump with entering the blocking state. For example, Dr. Doom's cr.HK can be Super Jump Cancelled (SJCd) before it finishes, without even hitting anything. If there is something on screen that causes him to block, he can do cr.HK > super jump up-backwards repeatedly (cancel the sweep with super jump, and cancel the super jump with pre-block and stay grounded) to get meter very quickly. It isn't particularly common, but it can come in clutch mid-match or even allow some otherwise impossible combos!

Air Dash

Air Dashing is just what it sounds like. There are a ton of different properties, depending on the character, but some aspects are consistent. For instance; you can’t block for a few frames directly after you’ve air dashed, you’ll just air dash into whatever attack the person did. Depending on your jump, air dashing will either count as your last attack, although there are special exceptions (remember, this is MvC2!) or an ability that lets you do more attacks (it restarts your super jump) However, once you’ve air dashed, once you can’t do it again (unless you're Dhalsim, who can reset his super jump by teleporting during some point of his SJ) You only get one Air Dash per jump, this applies to both types of jumps.

Downwards air dashes will cause the dasher to float upwards after a certain amount of time. This can enable some strange blockstrings, or otherwise make you hard to punish if the defender isn't ready for it. You can maximize the effect of the float by saving your attack chain until the tail end of the dash, or by going through the chain slowly (so that the float has enough time to begin). If the air dash ends naturally if you didn't press anything, it won't occur. It also won't occur if the air dash ends early by any means.

The momentum Air Dashes have can be influenced by the character's state before it occurs, and the momentum they give persists through an air Magic Series chain until it ends. Like with jumps and super jumps, special moves and hyper combos can carry the momentum of air dashes as well, and this includes the downward air dash 'float' as well.

Triangle Jump

Triangle Jumping, or Tri-jumping, is jumping and quickly using an air dash diagonally downwards to both cover space and reach the ground sooner. This is particularly useful when trying to rush someone down, allowing you for example to quickly attack your opponent with an overhead from the air. G Conceptz has a video on trijumping here.

Offense

The Magic Series

In Marvel vs. Capcom 2, you have six buttons, four of which control your point character's normal moves, being the first two columns. The top two are your Light and Heavy Punches and the bottom two are your Light and Heavy Kicks. The light attacks act a bit differently from the heavy attacks. In previous Marvel/Versus titles, you had six normal attacks: light/medium/heavy punches and kicks. It may look like Medium attacks got cut, but what they've done this time around is combined the Light and Medium attacks into one button. In most cases, pressing a Light button makes a Light attack come out, but if you press a Light button after a previous Light* makes contact, a Medium attack will come out. It is not possible to use Medium attacks unless a previous Light* attack has connected with an opponent, on block or hit.

To make the Versus series more fast-paced and combo dependent, they added a feature that is known as the Magic Series. The Magic Series is a combo 'guideline' of sorts that allows you to cancel between normal moves from weak to strong to create large, multiple hit combos. It has been in every Marvel/Versus game to date, and has even been used in other Capcom titles. The Magic Series attack sequence is as follows:

{{ LP > LK > MP > MK > HP > HK }}

The game allows you to chain all six attacks together in one combo. Unfortunately, not every character can do this full six-piece combo, but the rule still applies across the cast in other forms. Different characters have different 'types' of the Magic Series:

- there's the 'Hunter' chain of two-Lights > two-Mediums > two-Heavies (input as LP > LK > LP > LK > HP > HK) which is the most common, like Ruby Heart,

- the 'Marvel' chain of one Light, one Medium, one Heavy (input as Lx > Lx > Hx) which is what most of the rest of the characters have, like Cable,

- and the '2-Hit' chain of one Light into either one Medium OR one Heavy (input as Lx > Lx OR Lx > Hx) which only a few characters have, like Venom.

In the air, it's not always possible to combo two Heavy attacks, because air Heavies tend to knock down thanks to Flying Screen. Visually, the air HP will send them to the ground, causing the following air HK to whiff. But depending on the character and their moves, sometimes delaying the inputs can allow for all six hits (and more damage!)

{{ LP > MP > HP }}

{{ LK > MK > HK }}

{{ LP > LK > MP > HP}}

{{ LP > MP > MK > HK}}

Here are some examples of what you can do with the Magic Series. Although it has to be in on order, it's lenient enough to allow you to skip out attacks in the series of six, so you can shorten it to five, four, three or even two attacks. As long as it goes in the order of Light > Medium > Heavy with Punches > Kicks, it will generally be allowed.

Crossover Assists

While your main four buttons control your character's attacks, you also have two buttons in the third column that call your partners on screen to help out! The top right button controls Assist 1, the second character in the list, and the bottom right button controls Assist 2, the third character. While on character select, you pick three characters as well as an assist type for each one. The assist type chosen determines what your partners will do when you press their respective Assist button. Crossover Assists come in various shapes and forms, but are usually Special Moves. Crossover Assists aren't instant, as the characters take a while to jump in from offscreen, so keep the delay in mind as you start learning timings for assist calls. Don't over-use your assists either, as they're still vulnerable to attack from the opponent! Assists can be hit both before they perform their assist (for 1 frame) and however much recovery their assist has, plus the animation they do once they're done.

While the game does have Negative Edge for Specials and Hypers, the assist buttons work like normal attacks. What this means is your partners won't come out if you press and hold their button. Always make sure that you release the button to ensure your assist comes out.

Assist types :

Each character has 3 distinct Assist Types, listed in-game as α, β and γ. list of each character's assists, in order. Here's a general breakdown of how each one usually behaves, and examples to help.

• Projectile: A ranged, usually horizontal shot or beam, like Ryu's Hadoken.
• Dash: Quick horizontal attack wherein the character himself charges at the opponent, like Captain America's Charging Star.
• Ground: Horizontal attack that covers an area of ground in front of you, like Felicia's Sand Splash.
• Anti-air: An attack effective against airborne opponents, usually covering above and in front of you, like Psylocke's Psy-Blade.
• Launcher: Close-ranged normal attack that pops your opponent into the air for a combo. Usually visually identical to their universal launcher, but sometimes the properties vary!
• Balance: A combination of the character's other two assists. Either copy of the character's first assist but with the second assist's Variable Counter, or vice versa.
• Expansion: An attack that has a wide area of effect in front of you and can be used to 'expand' your combos with their hit properties, like Ken's Tatsumaki Senpukyaku.
• Variety: Unique attacks that may not fit the other labels, like Doctor Doom's Photon Shot.
• Capture: Ranged attempt to immobilize an opponent for a short duration, like Thanos's Death Sphere.
• Throw: Attempt to grapple the opponent with an unblockable throw, like Rogue's Power Drain.
• Air Throw: Jumping attempt to catch an airborne opponent with an unblockable throw. Zangief is the only one with an Air Throw assist!
• Heal: Creates a pickup that restores some of the point character's red health on contact. Amingo, Jill, and SonSon are the only ones with Heal assists!
• Enhance: Creates a pickup that improves the active character's offense or defense for a short time. Ruby Heart and Amingo are the only ones with Enhance assists!

Variable Counter

back, downback, down (412) + A1 / A2 (facing right)

Variable Counters, mostly known as Alpha Counters, are a defensive tool that lets you switch your characters out while blocking for the cost of 1 Hyper bar. It can only be done on the ground, and you can extend the input window for it by push-blocking. When you Alpha Counter, the character associated with that assist button is brought in, and they perform their Counter move (as specified by their Crossover Assist's type). Alpha Counters are usually Special Moves, and they can be cancelled into Hyper Combos as usual. However, the Alpha Counters that are normal attacks (like those seen with Launcher assists) are coded as Specials, which means they can also be cancelled into Hypers, but they *can't* be cancelled into Specials or Super Jumps. The most popular Alpha Counter is Cable's Anti-Air Assist Alpha Counter, the Psimitar, which is typically cancelled into his Air Hyper Viper Beam (AHVB) for a speedy reversal if he has the meter to burn.

Cross-over Combination

A1+A2 Cross-over Combination is a technique that allows your team to attack together with Hyper Combos. Hyper meter

Snap Back

QCF+ A1 / A2

Snap Backs are attacks that will cause the character hit to leave the screen and another to come in (depending on which button you used) in exchange for 1 Hyper bar. The snap back makes whoever you snapped out unable to be called nor switched to for a few seconds. You also cannot DHC into nor Variable Counter into the snapped out character. Some snaps have very good reach and speed. Others might have speed but the range is very bad. If you land a snap on your opponent's assist, instead of leaving the screen, their body stays in play. If you snap your opponent's character while their assist is on screen, your opponent has to sit and watch while you have the opportunity to attack their assist. If you snap your opponent's character AND their assist, that's a Double Snap, and with the right follow-up, you can kill their assist uncontested.

There is a bug that happens with assist 2 snap outs where if you counter with assist two while the 'x' is still on your name you will disappear and hop back (the animation of a counter) as if you were leaving but instead stay on screen in addition to that you become invisible and semi-invincible. A general rule for invisibility is that you have it as long as your character doesn’t come back to standing animation after doing a move. So say you were Doom and you were invisible and you did his S.LP after the move was finished he would go into standing animation and that is when he will be visible. Also, jumping requires you to go through standing animation so it will cause become visible. As for the semi-invincibility, some characters are safe from being hit low or high, and some characters, both. The characters that have immunity from high and low attacks can only be hit if they move and turn visible again or if the other character causes them to turn around. Snap backs can cause things to hit more than they should. For instance Cyclops does a LP Optic Blast and right before it hits the other character performs a snap back, if timed right the Optic Blast will hit more than it should. A snap back kills frames and this affects characters in strange ways some will lose the frames of when their move hits others will get extra hits for their moves.

The A2 snap back causes strange effects for some characters:

• Gambit does A2 snap back and right after a Cajun Strike (make sure he goes to the left wall) and he’ll fly out of the screen.
• Ruby Heart does a phantom and before it comes out does a snap back (a2) and if the phantom doesn’t hit anyone it will cause the other person to go into block animation even when there is nothing on screen.
• One particular glitch of interest is when you attempt to Alpha Counter into a character that you may not switch into as they were victim of a snap back.

Dizzy

As with other Capcom games, the opponent can get dizzied if they take enough hits over time. There is an internal counter for Dizzy that starts at 80. Each time you land a hit, that meter decreases. When it decreases to 0, there is a Spin-out animation. The opponent's timer resets itself to 80 after 60 frames of not being hit.

The amount of Dizzy caused is random. However, Light attacks (LP/LK) cause the most stun, Mediums cause less, and Fierces cause the least.

Offensive-Crouch Launchers (Down+Forward+P/K), Specials and Supers do not add to the Dizzy Counter.

Off the Ground (OTG) attacks, Snapbacks, Throws and some capture attacks add to the Dizzy Counter, but cannot trigger the Spin-Out animation.

If the value is 0 during an OTG, Spin-Out will not be triggered.

Once the opponent is in another state while their value is 0, any attack will trigger the spinout until the timer resets itself.

If the value turns to 0 on a hit that Super Armor absorbs, the spin out will not happen. Instead, the value increases to 1.

The dizzy value is retained after a snapout, but calling the assist resets it. If the value turned to 0 as a result of the Snapback, it will change to 1 when the character returns.

Super Flash Glitch

During the super flash screen the game pauses characters for about four frames but projectiles advance. This four frame kill most notably lets Magneto combo hyper grav into Magnetic Tempest. Additionally, if the super flash starts on exactly the frame that an assist hits, that assist will hit twice. (Further discussion on SRK.)

Teams

Character selection

In Marvel vs. Capcom 2 the player selects three different characters to form their team. Each character has six different colors to choose from allowing players to color coordinate teams.

Switching Characters at the Vs. Screen

Additionally, the order in which the player picks their team can be altered during the "Vs." screen. By holding down the assist 1 button, the player can swap the first and second characters shown during the loading screen. Holding down assist 2 results in swapping the first and third characters shown during the loading screen. Holding down both assist buttons swaps the second and third characters.

The First Attack Glitch

By swapping your starting character during the Vs. screen you activate a glitch. Once activated it allows you to hold any of the four attack button and when the fight begins, if it's still held those attack buttons will automatically come out. Bear in mind though it is said a perfectly timed attack is more accurate than using this glitch, so don't always expect to get away with it at high level play.

Typically it is most advantageous to 'glitch' something very quick such as Magneto's 1-frame cLK, but you can also glitch a dash (2P - you can glitch either a forward or back dash), a switch-in (LP+LK or HP+HK), or a button-only special move such as Storm's Lightning Attack.

Note that this input glitch applies to all available inputs, so you can also glitch directional inputs which lets you superjump almost immediately.

Assists

The Assist 1 (A1) and Assist 2 (A2) buttons can be used to call your assists one a time. (Pressing both A1+A2 together will cause a THC.) The corresponding character will then pop on screen and perform their assist type attack. You can call them as often as they would like until they die. They will take normal damage when hit while on-screen. Red bar health recovery will stop until they are again off-screen.

Rules

• Assists can only be called when your character is able to attack (not in hit or block stun.)
• You can't call out an assist in super jump mode.
• You may not call an assist that has been snapped out until the red X over their life bar goes away. Their life bar will briefly flash "ASSIST OK!" when they are enabled again.
• Once an assist hits as part of a combo, you may not call another assist again in that combo. Vidness says that his "triple assist" combo exploits the glitch whereby an assist that is the same as the point character does not get counted as an assist. You can also call the assist multiple times before the first hit of the combo, which can let the assist hit multiple times in some combos.

Vulnerability

As you will notice if you play against MSP more than once, your assists cannot block. They will be called in, perform their move, pose briefly, and then leave. At any point they can be hit (subject to their normal hit box) and will leave as soon as they recover and hit the ground. If juggled, they can be hit infinitely until death. Thus you will want to protect your assists or you will lose.

Assist Glitches

• Tron Bonne's "Y" Projectile assist should be her medium attack (5 pts per hit) but uses her fierce damage (15pts per hit). This is true for all medium normal attack assists but is only particularly useful for Tron.
• Per Vidness, an assist that is the same character as the point character does not get counted as an assist hit.

Delayed Hyper Combo

A Delayed Hyper Combo (DHC) is when you cancel the super attack of your point character with a super from the next character. The classic MvC2 example is hitting the opponent with Storm's Lightning Storm super and then DHC'ing (canceling) that late into Sentinel's Hyper Sentinel Force. You can DHC up to twice in the same super sequence: the normal super screen background is blue, the first DHC screen background is green, and the second and final DHC screen background is red. You cannot reuse the same character in a DHC sequence: to DHC twice you would need all three characters alive.

Team Hyper Combo

The Team Hyper Combo (THC) is an attack used by pressing the A1+A2 buttons at the same time when your character is on the ground. It can be activated with a minimum of one super level, and can use as many super levels as you have characters left on your team. For each super meter consumed, one character is activated. The activated characters then perform their Team Hyper Combo move. Thus if you have five meters but one character left, only one super level will be consumed and your point character will do their THC. If you have two meters but three characters, only your first two characters will do their THCs.

THCs are generally derided but are useful for:

• Accessing super moves the character can not perform normally. Examples are Zangief's Mega Lariat, Rogue's Rushing Punches, Kobun's Walking Forward Kobun, Spiral's one-level Transforming Punches.
• Accessing a super for the other character without requiring a switchout. This is commonly popular when Captain Commando is on your team: you can use the THC to attempt to punish super-jumping characters who are not in block.
• Heavy damage. This was popularized via "one hit kill" teams such as BB Hood / Juggernaut / Captain Commando : the tactic is to build three meters and get one clean shot on your opponent.
• Trickery. Since it takes one hit per character to stop them from performing their part in the super barrage, if one character is going to eat the hit, the other characters will continue the THC and possibly deal out the damage you need.

As you should be able to see, the THC is not generally of great use, but can be an effective tactical addition to your game if your character/team has a good THC. For Psylocke or Tron based teams you would likely never want to use your THC, but for Commando-based teams it's of high occasional value. For low tier teams, it may be a critical gimmick for your team.

Defense

Marvel vs Capcom 2 continues the defensive logic originated in Street Fighter 2 and evolved throughout the Vs series of games.

Blocking

To prevent or minimize damage from an attack, you need to block it appropriate to that attack. Attacks can be normal, high, low, or jumping. Blocks can be low or standing (normal). A low attack must be blocked low. A normal attack can be blocked either low or standing. A high or jumping attack must be be blocked standing / normal.

Chip Damage

Certain moves will inflict damage even if you block: this is called chip damage. Doom-B's rock assist and Iceman's beam attacks are notable examples of moves that cause chip damage. Additionally, certain characters will cause chip damage even with their normal moves: these include Sentinel and Jin with Saotome Shine active. Iceman uniquely avoids chip damage from most energy type moves that chip and only takes chip damage from physical type moves.

Super Armor

Certain characters, such as Juggernaut, Hulk, and Sentinel, have Super Armor. This allows them to take up to one non-heavy attack without going into hit stun. Heavy attacks and certain other attacks bypass this Super Armor.

Hyper Armor

Hyper Armor allows the character to take an unlimited number of hits of any type without entering hit stun. Mech Zangief and Colossus with his super active have access to Hyper Armor. Rogue can also gain access to it by copying it from someone with it active. This video shows two examples of hyper armor: the Mech Zangief assist continuing through attacks and Rogue (with Hyper Armor copied from Mech Zangief) continuing to attack regardless of taking hits.

Base Defense

Attack damage assigned to the defending character is scaled based upon that character's base defense. For example Akuma takes much more damage from the same combo than Sentinel will. The base scaling for each character is as shown:

Damage %	Characters
75%	Sentinel
81%	Colossus
87%	Blackheart, Hulk, Juggernaut, Zangief
93%	Captain America, Dr. Doom, Omega Red, Rogue*, Silver Samurai*, Thanos, Tron Bonne
100% (normal)	Amingo, Cable, Captain Commando, Charlie, Cyclops, Gambit, Guile, Iron Man, Jin, M. Bison, Ruby Heart, Ryu, Sakura, Venom, War Machine
106%	B.B. Hood, Chun-Li, Hayato, Jill, Ken, Magneto, Megaman, Sabretooth, Spiral, Storm
112%	Cammy, Dan, Dhalsim, Felicia, Iceman, Psylocke, Shuma-Gorath
118%	Marrow, Morrigan, Sonson
125%	Anakaris, Spider-Man, Strider, Wolverine
137%	Akuma, Roll, Servbot, Wolverine (Bone)

Tech Rolling

Tech Rolling is when you hit the floor and roll away. This technique helps to get characters out of extended combos. However, some people can make their off the ground combos (abbreviated as OTG/’s) unrollable by inputting their attack before you land on the floor. To perform a tech roll you have to do a reverse fireball motion (B,DB,D + any punch or kick button). Characters are invincible when falling down after being SWEPT. The only character in the game that can be hit before he lands after being swept is ----- Dhalsim!

Not every move that knocks you on your back will let you roll out of it – there are some moves that require you to mash if you want to get up quicker (ex. Gamma Crush). However, some moves are genuinely unrollable (ex. B.B. Hood’s Cruel Hunting super). Some supers that carry characters across the screen (ex. Magneto’s shockwave) are unrollable. Lastly, some moves require switching the way you input the roll command. Meaning that instead of rolling the way you’re supposed to (B,DB,D + any punch or kick button) you would have to do the opposite motion (F,DF,D + any punch or kick button).

The person who is not tech rolling can choose which direction the tech roller is going to go by placing their character on a certain side. If he/she moves to the right of the opponents character the opponents character will roll to the right. (Side note about rolling: OTGs do not cause stun so you cannot dizzy someone if all of your attacks are OTGs. One infinite that abuses this rule is Amingo’s QCF+LP (specials don’t cause stun) OTG with S.LK repeat: it can be done for 999+ hits.

Some properties about OTGs, rolls and wake-ups:

• The person who is rolling is invincible till they get up.
• Everyone’s roll is the same, meaning they travel the same distance and at the same speed.
• When a character is in their rising animation they are invincible. This means that attacks can go through them and they will not be hit until they are in their standing animation. This allows a character to be crossed up while they are getting up. For example, Magneto’s CR.HK can cross up characters. If Magneto’s sprite is RIGHT in the middle of the character that is getting up it will cause confusion regarding which side they should block, so it becomes a cross-up. This can also sometimes cause unblockables to occur. However, if the move the person is trying to do is a low attack the character getting up can jump straight out of the attack since there are some invincibility frames when jumping straight out of the rising animation. The only thing that can stop this is a move that would hit you from mid or high.
• Characters can control which direction their opponent will roll when tech rolling by standing or being above the opponent on a certain side. Some characters can perform this technique by simply holding their position after performing a sweep. For example, if you're Magneto or a character who moves forward during their sweep you would just sit there as the opponent rolls to the other side (forward).

Force-Rolls

Force-Rolls are when the character hits you right before you hit the floor or when you’re already on the floor and he hits you with only one move. That causes you to start rolling. However, this kind of roll is different than normal tech rolling. You can be hit during the first few frames of your Force-Roll. For instance: Psylocke does a CR.HK and OTG’s with a CR.LK (if she doesn’t do anything afterwards you’ll start to roll away from her but you’ll be in the air for some reason) if she waits and does a dashing CR.HP it will OTG you and won’t count as a move that produced stun. So, it’s possible to get two different kinds of OTG’s in a combo. On that example of Psylocke: she can do an infinite on Servbot by doing [CR.HP -> Psyblade -> OTG w/ CR.LK, pause for a little bit/let the CR.LK animation finish, -> dash] As you probably guessed, it can be done for 999+ hits.

Another interesting thing about force rolls is that if you are hit with a CR.LP or CR.LK you will pop-up into the air in a strange way. And if you’re hit with a sweep (normally) you will fall down as if you were knocked on your back again. Theoretically that would be an infinite ([OTG, CR.HK]). Oh, and if you’re hit with a standing move usually a S.LK you will be knocked on your feet in a strange way. It will look like you bounced a little then landed on your feet.

Tech Hitting

Tech-Hitting can also be called Tech Throwing. Which means you get out of a throw before the character does his damage on you or after he does his damage on you but before you land on the floor. EX: You can tech hit Sentinel’s throw after he throws you into the corner before he can OTG you. Or you can Tech hit out of Juggernaut’s HP throw in the corner before he kills you in 5 hits. To do a tech hit you have to hold the joystick left or right and press HP or HK while doing so. You can do it at the start of the persons throws or at the end right before you land. Not all throws are techable, you can’t tech specials or supers. An important thing about tech throws is that you can’t tech roll if the person performs an unrollable OTG on you. EX: Juggernaut can hit you before you land making a tech throw on the floor impossible. Some people’s throws and follow-ups to those throws are so dangerous that you must tech hit before they actually do their damage/animation.

Another big important thing about tech hitting is that you are put into normal jump which means you lose unfly and you can be guard broken no matter how high up you on screen. Although it’s not as bad as it sounds since you can block once + call an assist.

Tech Hit/Tech Roll Buffering

When you are thrown, do the motion for tech roll, then finish the motion when you hit the ground, (so if roll is half circle forward, you end on forward, when you hit the ground) and hit FP or FK.

That way, you've done the motion and button for the roll, but you also are trying to tech it, since you hit forward and fp when you hit the ground.

If you don't get the tech hit, you get the roll.

Guard Breaks

A character in normal jump mode can only perform one special action until they land. A character switching in to the game is in normal jump mode: thus if you can get that character to block once, you can hit them after they recover and start falling again.

Push Block

Push Blocking is done by pressing the two punch buttons while you’re being hit or a short time after. Almost every character in the game has their own guard stiffness time which means that they will remain in guard stun for a period after there are no more attacks to block on screen. For instance Cable is in guard stiffness for 23 frames after making him very hard to throw after a whiffed move. Cyclops is in guard stiffness for about 4 frames! So Cyclops would have less time to push block something after it is gone than Cable. Push blocking works differently on the ground, in normal jump mode and in super jump mode.

Push-blocking states

On the ground – When you push block something on the ground and let go of block you will eventually be 100% free meaning you won’t have any guard stiffness after a while. You can use that to escape out of almost any trap on the ground since jumping is very fast (2-3 frames to be off the ground). However, there are moves that can stop your jump, for instance Strider’s trap can stop your jump because the orbs prevent you from being off the ground for too long so you’ll get hit before you fully escape high into the air. However if you continue to block instead of trying to do something you’ll just keep blocking and won’t be guard broken if you were being hit by a Proton Cannon or something. When you get out of block stun you can do anything, not just super jump, a funny thing to try is using instant supers and DHC’s to punish something while it’s still going.

In Normal-Jump mode – There are various times you can be in normal jump mode, not just after normal jumping up. For instance if you tech-hit or if you unfly and you don’t have unfly, if you’re Dhalsim and you perform a drill while in SJ mode, and many other things! Anyway, when you’re in normal jump mode you can be easily guard broken and sometimes push blocking helps. Even if push blocking is your first action when you jump into the air you’ll still be vulnerable when you finish your push block animation (well, its just one frame held for a second or two). So it’s easy to say that push blocking can be very dangerous unless you’re in a certain situation where the person can’t hit you or you can call an assist to protect you while you fall.

In Super-Jump mode – Usually push blocking in during your super jump just means that you will be able to throw the guy if he’s rushing you with attacks. However that’s not exactly true, you can be guard broken in super jump mode after a while and if you’re being bombarded with continuous attacks. For instance if you’re playing Magneto and he air dashes towards you and does his magic series and you push block it – he can go into a tempest for a little then into hail storm and you’ll be guard broken!

Guard Canceling

Consider a move such as the Hyper Sentinel Force super. If you are blocking the first set of drones and let go of the stick, you will remain in block stun for the duration of the super. However, if you push block you will cancel that block stun early after taking the currently blocked hit. If you keep holding back, you will keep blocking. If you instead put the stick in neutral, you will get hit by the next hit of the move unless you take actions to avoid it. The most common example by advanced players is to push block and superjump out of Hyper Sentinel Force, avoiding most of the chip damage and positioning yourself better. Slipgater made a tutorial video of this here showing just jumping out, and NKI has a nice video of punishing HSF with AHVB.

Countering

Countering in Marvel vs Capcom 2 originates from Street Fighter Alpha, and as such is often called an "Alpha Counter". It can also be called a Hyper or Variable Counter. The motion for an Alpha Counter is b,d/b,d + A1 / A2 when your point character is in hit-stun, and requires and consumes one super meter level to execute. This can only be done on the ground. You can extend hit-stun by Push Block.

When you Alpha Counter, the character associated with that assist button is brought in performing their Counter move as specified by their assist type. This Alpha Counter can either be a normal move or a special move and can be cancelled as usual. Thus a popular Alpha Counter is Cable's Anti-Air Assist Alpha Counter, the Scimitar, which is then cancelled into his Air Hyper Viper Beam (AHVB).

One particular glitch of interest is when you attempt to Alpha Counter into a character that you may not switch into as they were victim of a Snap Back.