Glad you had the Justin/Tokido 3rd Strike match. I'd like to add that at the time of this EVO exhibition the game had been out for years already. And on top of that FROM THE SAME EXHIBITION there was a Yun mirror match and the American Yun wasn't using Genei Jin super. In fact no Americans were using that Super at the time.

Naw I actually knew rest did that as a kid. It was shine/reflector that I thought was useless and trash.

Not so much move but a mechanic. I remember early on in Smash 4 Perfect Pivots were discovered as a way to do spacing a movement and although it was clear from the start that it would be good, it went underutilized at the top level cause it was seen as a bit too situational. Then MKLeo started entering tournaments with Marth who was seen as a mid-tier character at best and MKLeo stats using Perfect Pivots everywhere to consistently space tippers and Dancing Blade. Then people started to look for way more perfect pivot tech for the rest of the cast.

I think something not mentioned (unless I missed it), is how Elena can build meter with the focus absorbtion, so in theory, she could build heal meter without actually taking damage (meaning she could techincally heal infinitely if played right). If she could only use it after taking permanent damage, it would be good still, but being able to heal off hits that in the end don't do permanent damage puts it over the edge.

Rash's wrecking ball in KI is a good example. it's a pretty weird move at first glance, when he does it he turns into a wrecking ball and swings across the screen while armored, and then after the swing ends he turns back into normal and can do air actions. The problem is due to the angle he comes out of the swing, it's a guaranteed anti-air on block every single time and unless you reach the corner and wall splat them it doesn't really give any reward on hit. But then a particular player named Alex V started pulling up and ABUSING wrecking ball by doing the air version very low to the ground and actually cancelling the air momentum at the end by doing a jump normal immediately, making Rash fall diagonally downwards immediately after coming out of the ball. It beat mashes and even safejumped most DPs, and of course if you block it he's plus cuz of the jump normal. It went from being a mediocre scrub killing move to an absolutely defining part of his kit, a ton of MUs are now defined by whether or not you have an answer to wrecking ball

It’s definitely not broken and I don’t think anyone every considered it trash, but I can think of vegito’s j.S in fighterz. Finding the left-right 50/50 was one thing, but the OS’ people found to make it safe and confirm if they didn’t know if it would hit were pretty cool

there are so many of these even in modern fighting games a lot of ky's look at like 6k and say that move sucks 25 frame start up they just react and blah blah but then you use it and you realize it covers a ton of options and answers a lot of natural fuzzy timings and is plus. it's an integral part of his pressure and it was originally thought of as useless by the wider community for a while. now it's worth mentioning 6K isn't broken at all and isn't even one of ky's best moves but it's a move that was discarded by many newer players to the series. For strive there are some other moves but generally strong players realize how strong a move is in the modern era pretty quickly. zato 2S was a move that people complained was lackluster forgetting that it was attached to zato. most of the pervasive discussion is done by newer players to the characters or just newer/weaker players in general that didn't realize the strength of moves. a lot of old school zatos complained about it because it wasn't as good as it used to be but also if you really asked them they'd say it was aiight or pretty good.

I don't know if it's "broken" but it definitely became less useless: as of a recent KOFXV patch Chizuru's EX swat turned from a slow ground bounce to a pretty quick overhead which really adds a lot to her already freakish pressure. I wish I had better KOF examples but I got on the train real late so I was never around for the absolute scumfuckery of the old games. as an aside I think seeing the opposite of this video could be neat. once-dominant moves that have become shadows of themselves. again, I wish I had a good example but honestly all I can think of rn is "any meterless dp in SFV after season 2"

People seem to forget that a couple of things had to happen before Morrigan ascended to god tier with her astral vision. Dieminion was probably one of the first players who found some success with Morrigan. Early on, he was playing her anchor, and his strategy was lame people out with astral vision morrigan in lvl3 xfactor. This was very annoying to say the least, but he wasn't really oppressing everyone with this strategy, despite him playing morrigan. Morrigan still had a very bad problem to have in mvc3, which was that she simply had no damage. This was probably why Dieminion was playing her with lvl3 xfactor, but morrigan barely even helps her team as an assist, so as a character in general she was pretty weak even when considering her stupid astral vision. It wasn't until people developed practical doom infinites that allowed you to do two things in UMvC3: Kill any character in one touch with any character as long as you have doom second, and build infinite meter. It was never about morrigan, and quite frankly it wasn't even about morri-doom spamming with missiles either. It was about the game having practical infinites, and a character named vergil that fit into every team and works as a last resort in case morrigan dies. There's team comps that can actually do a good job at dealing with morri-doom spam, but they require vergil on point, and x factor. But why do you think this is more of an extreme strategy rather than a solid counter? Because if you spend every resource to kill morri-doom, vergil can still wipe your ass. So, no, astral vision was never this hidden op move that nobody cared to use. Morrigan just got lucky that doom and vergil existed.

as an fgzoomer this makes me kinda sad about how connected the fgc is nowadays even if it's better overall. Having all these different scenes with different discoveries seems mad interesting.

While I didn't play this game and never experienced it firsthand, I have read about it elsewhere. In KoF2002, May Lee's 5CD when in her "Hero" stance is a very slow, telegraphed unblockable. Generally not the sort of move that sees much use, especially when a game like KoF has a system answer to it via rolling. However, she can cancel the recovery of the move into her stance switch, reducing the downtime drastically, so what would happen is: -May Lee gets a hit, converts into a combo, and ends it with hero mode 236B -This knockdown puts her at a range where only the tip of hero 5CD will hit, and she does it on oki -If you get hit, congratulations, you just ate a significant amount of damage and got hard knockdown -if you roll, she can cancel it and punish the recovery on your roll Silly funny move on a silly funny character

LK please add the bgm you use in these videos in the description, they’re really too good. I’m in love with that Troublesome Visitor remix at the start but I can’t find it

Admittedly this is the product of a patch buffing the move on top of the move being slept on, but Street Fighter 5 Ken's V-Trigger 2: Shinryuken. In the patch just before Champion Edition, they made it suck harder. And by that I mean they extended the suction hitbox that it puts out, making it an insanely powerful near-midscreen anti-fireball tool... you don't even have to activate it to force the opponent to stop throwing projectiles, as well as being insanely powerful as a whiff punish or long-range punish for moves you couldn't otherwise punish... Also it starts combos, goes into super, and is only a 2 bar V-Trigger meaning you get it fast. Part of the reason people slept on it so hard, I think, is because it looks like a DP, it's got the name of a DP... but it doesn't do anything a DP usually does. His meterless DP is a better anti-air, it's not strike invulnerable even though it's a metered DP, it scales your combos to hell because it's a V-Trigger activation, so it doesn't end combos like a DP.... No wonder people thought it was bad.

I think a somewhat recent example could be gotenks ghosts in dbfz. From what I remember (correct me if I'm wrong), it wasn't really used until the end of season 1 when kazunoko showed just how oppressive ghost oki could be.

anyone know the song at 3:28? i know it's ryu's theme but idk that version.

Bafael is great, he truly knows his shit

Example from a much less known game: in Touhou Hisoutensoku, Iku Nagae's alternate 214BC: the spinner. It's a big, slow, low-rank bullet (meaning most of the game's bullets just bust through it, dispelling it it for free), with super slow startup and recovery, and that freezes you in-place for the duration of the cast. It does have long duration and a ton of hits and hitstun, so it's very meaty, and it doesn't get dispelled from Iku being poked or from graze, but it also replaces your default 214BC missile, which is Iku's only medium-rank bullet, not counting supers. At first it looks like it would only be useful for oki, but it's definitely not worth the deck slot just for that. But it just so happens that Remilia Scarlet, a very aggressive and fast melee character with unusual but limited movement, who otherwise hard counters Iku, does not have any medium-rank bullets to dispel the spinner. So you'd include spinner in a deck meant to be used against Remilia, and play zoning and keepaway until you draw it, and from there if a competent Iku gets a spinner out, the match is over. Normally having big size is a disadvantage on low-rank bullets because it's easier to dispel them, but in this matchup it blocks all of Remilia's limited approach routes. Even if she catches you with a graze attack, Remilia will still be caught in the spinner and its massive hitstun. Similarly Iku herself is also victim to Reisen's unremarkable B bullets because they're medium-rank and stay in-place, covering Iku's preferred melee zoning angles. Since Iku is very big and slow, and Reisen's B bullets come out in multiples and fast, there's really nothing Iku can do to contest them, and despite Iku being top tier and Reisen being low mid at best, Reisen counters Iku.

I remember my cuz from Canada came down and said sleep is the best move in the game I laughed until he memed on me with weird jiggly puff Canadian tech

anyone know what is the remix that plays at the start of the vid

I assume Elena was in fact busted, but that example clip felt less than compelling.

Down here on Floor 9 Nago’s clone counts as a debuff because of how they’ll toss out full-screen hail marys and go blood rage accidentally.

More story time is always great!

So litchi’s drive is like Vergil force edge round trip

Can't wait to hear why he says this 3:48

I don't know if this is technically relevant to the topic of discussion but I remember when Haggar in Marvel vs Capcom 3 was considered meh because he was a grappler in a fast-paced screen control game. But, when players discovered the dropkick could be used to cancel recovery from the pipe swing he was immediately elevated to high-tier status

This is crazy

P4AU(2) Mitsuru's 2[B]. This move with pretty worthless in combos and was generally only used as a pretty risky frametrap that launches if counterhit. Now it launches standing opponents, so a raw 2[B] or 5AA 2[B] (On S.Mitsuru or Normal in the corner) is a true combo starter that boosts her midscreen damage, meter gain, and corner carny exponentially. Such a nice change for the character.

LK Litchi guide when 👀

so robo-ky isn't broken, but it used to be that his time bomb install was considered a waste of meter, and now it's considered essential

I remember watching a lot of USF4 tournaments, and Elena truly did ruin the game to an extent. Both her general moveset, and the broken properties of healing (it also naturally let her use it more times, as she got to take more damage to fill it, lol... how could they not notice such a clear problem?) turned the tournament scene from one that had been as hype as Street Fighter can possibly get, to every single top 8 having multiple Elena players... even one would make it feel off and stupid, as you saw players who were masters at the game frustrated into submission by pure attrition and BS (all of her silly long-range multi-hitting moves and b&b combos took so long compared to everyone else's also, that it gave her a sense of controlling the pace of the match, of making it almost feel like a different game than if she wasn't in the match. It's unfortunate that she came out when there was still a lot of play left in the game, while characters like Decapre and Evil Ryu barely got a chance to be used, also.

i was one of the lucky ones using rest in n64 wen i was young aha

YU Thunder God Dance I don't play Yu i guess the name. i think its worthless if you get the combo or timing wrong Yu just stands there and the damage isn't great

The danfinite

who in this world thought Litchis drive was useless?

I'm actually kind of disappointed, from what you said i beginning i thought you were going to talk about moves that people eventually figured out how to use, not about moves that became stronger because of patches.

Litchi thumbnail 👀💦💦💦

i mean nago's clone *was* pretty shit before the buffs. not just increased range but better startup and it moves much faster too

Yeet

first

Slowdowned melty soundtrack, I do not dig. Good video however.