The Meta Interferes: Fighting in an Uneven Matchup

Sometimes there are just characters that have matchups that are one-sided before even taking in to account their players, and this can be quite the challenge for the players on the wrong side of the scale. Matchups are a commonly discussed topic in the fighting game community, and translates quite well to our game here.

In Soul Calibur 6, Xianghua's worst opponent to fight is Seong Mi-na. I wouldn't say that is exactly Xianghua's worst opponent here, but it is certainly unfavorable for many reasons. Xianghua hates having her attacks aborted, and she has trouble fighting against things such as big health pools, and lots of speed. Once you see how a character plays, you can start associating it with its strengths and weaknesses, and probably think of similar decks like it. You can associate matchups as specific character vs character, as shown above, or you can just consider archetype vs character. Is a character that needs face up foundations in play ruining your day? Then a character who can focus on flipping his opponent's board could be what you desire, or maybe you just need to change up your deck a little bit to meet it in the middle.

Matchups are deeper defined by symbol choice. Sometimes a character has only 1 viable symbol, and that is the one that it is mainly known for among the community, but sometimes characters can have multiple viable builds, and this can add a lot of unknown variance to matchups. Additionally, with each release of new cards we find new strategies for old characters, or maybe counters to some characters will have cycled out of legality, and just as how fighting games are patched to make lots of matchups even, we find many shifts in the meta with each new set.

As you learn to identify symbol identities and how characters play, you will be able to start identifying matchup difficulties at a glance. If you are sitting down against an earth deck, you may know that the earth symbol is generally a slower symbol with not much draw, but it does have a lot of speed and damage reduction, so this could be taken in to consideration as early as your first turn. You may wish to mulligan for key pieces in your deck that would hinder an earth deck in this situation, such as a damage reset, or maybe you should aggressively try to mulligan for a build turn of at least 4 foundations. Personally, I try to build most of my decks with the ability to build at least 4 foundations on turn 1, so I will often find myself throwing away a perfectly fine hand just for a shot at outbuilding my opponent.

You could start by categorizing similarly themed characters and identifying how they fare against characters of different categories. For example, there are many characters who want to have a long drawn out kill turn, there are some who want fewer, more explosive attacks. It's not enough to learn which kinds of decks can go through a kill turn well, but you must also look at the other side of the coin for defense. It's easy to spot characters who can take a beating and probably want to make a huge wall, and also ones who excel at playing consecutive blocks, so you can add this knowledge together and generally figure out simple matchups. Someone who wants to have a big card pool of attacks is going to have an unfavorable matchup with a character that can consistently control the opponent's card pool.

You don't exactly need to swap out your character if someone at your locals is bringing a deck that you are having a hard time against, but knowing what should be able to beat it is the first step to turning the matchup on its head. Is there a deck that is constantly pounding on your nether regions with strong low attacks? One fix would be to move your foundation numbers around a bit so that you have a couple more low blocks, or you could have a bit more fun with it and sideboard a sneaky block just to deal with this one player. You could additionally run something strong that happens to fit within the engine you have. Maybe your deck already has the capability to pull back a card from the discard pile, so you could sideboard something that already works with the tech you have, and can be used to shut off some decks. Find solutions that work within your deck's mechanics before looking outward to entirely new cards, but there is nothing wrong with changing your deck around to perform better!

Take the knowledge that you learn about characters and archetypes, and learn to further associate it with the attacks that they will have. For our current meta as of this writing, there are several popular cards that are easy to see will end up in certain characters. Kuwabara here is clearly a great candidate for Air Ground Smash, as it has easy synergy with him, so you can go in to the fight knowing that you will probably to be able to cancel Air Ground Smash's enhance, and maybe also block it. That part is up to you. This will take time, but it is something that can come much easier by talking about characters with others, and not staying within your own shell.

I find that one of the best ways to learn about a character's strengths and weaknesses is to play them yourself. For years, I attempt to bring a new character to every weekly event, whatever form that may take at the time. This doesn't mean that you need to give up on your favorites, you can always keep them in mind. I've had a pet deck or three for the last 6 months that I've been tweaking on the side while I build other decks and learn about other characters.

Take the game at your own pace, there's no need to try to master everything immediately. If you want to quickly learn a bit about a character, maybe you should look at assembling a deck for them, even if you never intend to play it. Sometimes it helps to learn that what you may consider an ideal first draft of a character will have very little high blocks, or will have next to no card draw. You could take that information in to your next battle against that character and take advantage of these weaknesses!