Overview
Mike is a character with great strengths and crippling weaknesses. His damage and mobility is top notch, but he's greatly hurt by his limited range and technique. Mastering Mike is no easy task, and despite his brutal damage output, you'll need to work hard for your wins. Still, he's very rewarding and fun to play. But how do you play him?
Moves to Use & The 3-Hit Rule
3-Hit Rule
As mentioned before, Mike's damage is extremely high, which is an essential piece of the puzzle to taking rounds with him. This damage mostly comes from his HP and Kick (LK/MK/HK) buttons.
What these two buttons have in common is the fact that they both can kill any opponent in 3 collective hits. As such, you often won't think of the enemy's health as a traditional counter, rather just a simple meter that says "3 hits to kill, 2 hits to kill, etc".
two of Mike's moves break this "3-hit rule" however, those being his LP and MP. For the most part you won't use these too much. LP has a nice niche VS. more aggressive characters like Birdie... but MP is pretty useless other than for taunting.
The Dangerous Duo (of moves)
HP is your primary anti air in many matchups. While not fantastic, it gets the job done, and does very threatening damage. Additionally, it's your longest range move, so it's fantastic as a general longer range poke and punish. The biggest downside to this move is its ability to be crouched, which can make it a bit more difficult to use on some characters.
Kick is your other most important move. It crouches you down, making it a nice move for low profiling and counterpoking higher-hitting attacks. It's also very fast and knocks the enemy back. And if it doesn't knock the enemy back? Go for a second one! You're usually safe to do it and hitting both can take two thirds off of the opponent's healthbar, bringing you ever so closer to victory. This move does has a downside, though, and that's its range. You really have to get close for this move to work, which can be risky.
Movement
Mike's mobility is a little odd, but very strong if utilized properly. Using his unique movement is essential to getting through the opponent's defense as well as setting up your own.
Art of the Wavedash
Though most characters in this game can Wavedash, none can do it as smoothly and effectively as Mike, whose power allows him to zip forward and strike the opponent. But it gets better; as you're crouching during your Wavedash, you can slide under high hitting attacks with ease. This powerful feature is essential in some matchups like Sagat and Eagle.
The best way to wavedash is the "123" way, which in numpad notation, means exactly what you'd think. To wavedash repeatedly do "123123123123" (
). This method is done the most, as it allows you to stay crouched the entire time.
Note that it doesn't actually matter what order you press the directions in. "321321" will work, as will "23131213". Just keep hitting those directions!
Another method is to do "236236236236" (
) some consider this method easier, but it's not super recommended due to not being able to crouch all the time while doing it.
Here's a trick if you're on a keyboard and having trouble with crouched wavedashing: hold your down key, then repeatedly tap your left and right keys. This will allow you to consistently stay crouched while wavedashing. If you're on a stick, note that a square gate works best for wavedashing and staying crouched.
Taking a Step (and a jump) Back
Another important feature of Mike's movement is his back mobility. Since he can't Wavedash backwards, Mike needs other ways to retreat quickly. Luckily he's got some!
Mike's primary way of moving backwards is his backjump. It's very quick and takes him back a very far distance, making it an excellent move for getting out of dangerous situations. It's great for scenarios like trying to escape an enemy's jumpkick, but you don't have the time to anti-air it, or quickly dodging a low hitting attack if you predict one.
The main downside to using the backjump is that you're defenseless until you land. A poor backjump can lead to you getting swatted out of the air by an anti air attack like Eagle HP, or worst case scenario, a fireball! Mike's backjump is a great way of getting out of danger, but you still have to be careful while using it.
His next way of moving back is pretty weird, and fairly new tech, so it may be more difficult to apply. Basically, Mike's back walk, which is normally painfully slow, can actually be made extremely quick by using a trick to shave a lot of frames off of the walking animation.
The easiest way to use this is by tapping back to walk, holding forward, and then as soon as you land from your walking animation, tapping back again. Rinse and repeat. If done optimally, you can take off about 4 frames of the walk animation, allowing you to shuffle backwards at 1.66 times the speed! It's faster than you think.
Still, as mentioned before, it's pretty new tech, so its use has yet to be fully realized. Try it out if you can.
General Strategy
Mike's a easy character to play, but a difficult character to do well with. Learning how to make the most of his limited tools is essential to playing Mike optimally.