Marvel vs Capcom 2/System

This page will detail the basic system mechanics available to all characters in Marvel vs Capcom 2. Much of this information can also be found in Andor's video guide.

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Movement

On the ground, every character is able to walk in both directions. Characters are also able to dash by either double-tapping the desired direction (66 or 44), or pressing the desired direction alongside both punch buttons (6PP or 4PP). Dashing can be cancelled by almost any action, including any attack, jumping, crouching or even a dash of the opposite direction. The flexibility of dashes also allow for movement techniques such as wavedashing - watch this video by G Conceptz to learn more.

Characters are also able to jump by tapping any upward direction, as well as super jump by pressing any downward direction before jumping. Normal jumps and superjumps have a number of different properties which are worth noting.

Normal Jumps:

• Travel less overall vertical and horizontal distance compared to superjumps
• Only allow for one aerial action before landing
• Assists can be called while actionable and during air normals, but not specials or hypers
• Cannot be used to cancel out of attacks
• Impart more restrictive combo properties to attacks, ex: Normal Jump attacks cannot trigger Flying Screen, Normal Jump Special Moves cannot cancel into Hyper Combos, most characters have a per-air-time limit on air punches and kicks they're allowed to do before they're required to land to 'refresh' them.

By comparison, Super Jumps:

• Travel a greater overall vertical and horizontal distance than normal jumps, and also allow for further horizontal control via aerial drift (performed by holding 4 or 6 during a superjump)
• Allow for an unlimited number of aerial actions before landing, including repeatable special moves like fireballs for stalling
• Do not allow assist calls at all
• Can be used to cancel out of certain attacks
• Often allow for much greater combo possibilities, due to not having some of the restrictions as Normal Jump has listed above (attacks can trigger Flying Screen, air specials can be cancelled into hypers, and in most cases you can press air normals until you land)

These movement mechanics are also augmented by character-specific movement options, such as airdashes, flight modes, and Storm's float.

Team Systems

In Marvel vs Capcom 2, players select teams of three characters to take into a match with them. A game ends when all three of a player's characters has been defeated, or when time runs out. If a game runs to time, the player with the largest overall remaining life total will win.

Recoverable Life

When a character takes damage, a portion of that damage will be left as recoverable life (referred to as "red life"). This red life will be recovered passively whenever the character is not in play. If a character has red life remaining when they are tagged in, either via raw tag or via Snapback, they will lose whatever red life they had at the time. Switching out characters via Delayed Hyper Combo will not have this effect.

Switching Characters (Tag)

It is possible to perform a Crossover Attack (also called a "raw tag" or "hard tag") while on the ground by pressing LP+LK to switch to the second character in the team order, or by pressing HP+HK to switch to the third character in the team order. Raw tag will cause the point character to briefly pose while gaining invincibility before jumping out, while the selected character jumps into the fight with one of their jumping normals, at which point they will also perform a short taunt after landing. These raw tag attacks will always track to wherever the opponent's point character was at the time the tag was input.

Raw tags see some situational use both offensively and defensively. They are treated as special moves for move cancelling purposes, so they can be cancelled into from normal attacks, and will also launch the opponent high into the air on hit (assuming the opponent isn't knocked down), all of which can make raw tag an occasional combo starter or extender. At the same time, the invincibility on startup allows raw tag to be used as a reversal option, though this can be very risky due to raw tags being very punishable on block and whiff thanks to the pose/taunt the incoming character performs.

Switching Characters at the Vs. Screen

The order in which the player picks their team can be altered during the "Vs." screen. By holding down A1, the player can swap the first and second characters shown during the loading screen. Holding down A2 results in swapping the first and third characters shown during the loading screen. Holding down both assist buttons swaps the second and third characters.

Switch Glitch

Performing a switch at the vs screen allows for use of the switch glitch: holding a button to get a perfectly timed move. See Switch Glitch for more.

Assists

One of the defining features of Marvel vs Capcom 2, Variable Assists (referred to as simply 'Assists') are where most of the magic of the game happens. When selecting a character, players will also be prompted to select that character's assist type, which primarily determines what attack they will perform when called as an assist. In-game, assists are called by pressing either the A1 or A2 button. A1 will call the second character in the team order, while A2 will call the third character in the team order. Calling an assist will cause that character to jump into play, perform their move, and then strike a pose before jumping off-screen.

Assists define almost everything about how neutral, offense and defense function in Marvel vs Capcom 2, so understanding how to use them and how they interact with everything around them is critical to success.

Assist Types

Each character has 3 distinct Assist Types, listed in-game as α, β and γ. While the specific move indicated by any given assist is not noted in-game, character movelists will make note of which assist attacks each character has access to. In the game itself, however, each available assist option is signified by a broad "assist type" category. These categories are outlined below:

Assist Type	Description
Projectile	Usually a horizontal shot or beam, like Ryu's Hadoken.
Dash	A quick, advancing attack where the character 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	A close-ranged attack that pops your opponent into the air for a combo for you. Usually visually identical to their universal launcher, but sometimes the properties (damage, launch height/angle) vary!
Balance	A combination of the character's other two assists. Either a copy of the character's first assist but with the second assist's Alpha Counter, or vice versa. Strangely, Amingo's Balance assist is actually a combination of his other assists' Alpha Counters.
Expansion	An attack that has hits in front of you with solid active frames, 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	A ranged attack that immobilizes an opponent for a short duration, like Thanos's Death Sphere.
Throw	An attempt to grapple the opponent with an unblockable throw, like Rogue's Power Drain.
Air Throw	A 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 if they have any. Amingo, Jill, and SonSon are the only ones with Heal assists!
Enhance	Creates a pickup that improves the point character's offense or defense for a short time. Ruby Heart and Amingo are the only ones with Enhance assists!

Assist Restrictions

There are a number of rules and restrictions to when assists can be called:

• Assists can be called when your character is actionable (not in hitstun or blockstun) while grounded or when in the Normal Jump state.
• You can't call out an assist when in the Super Jump state.
• Assists can be called when attacking with grounded normals (or aerial normals, when in the Normal Jump state).
• You can't call out an assist during Special Moves nor Hyper Combos when grounded or airborne.
• You can't 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 during a combo, you may not call another assist again in that combo. However, you can also call the assist before the first hit of the combo, which can let the assist be called again to hit more than once in some combos.
  • 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.

Punishing Assists

At all points during their animation (barring any invincibility granted by certain moves), assists maintain all their normal hurtboxes, leaving them able to be punished. Assists are often at a far greater risk than point characters are due to two key factors: one is that assists are incapable of flipping out of hitstun the way that point characters are, meaning that combos that would otherwise be impossible are possible to perform on assist characters; the other is that combos on assists are not subject to combo damage scaling like they would be on point characters - in other words, each hit of a combo on an assist character will deal its full damage, no matter what. This makes assist punishes especially deadly.

Offensive Systems

Throws

Throws are performed by pressing 4/6HP (and/or 4/6HK, depending on the character) while close to the opponent. Throws universally impact on frame 1, but due to their low reward and inability to consistently beat meaty attacks, they don't see much use barring some exceptional characters.

Throws can be broken or softened (referred to in-game as a "Tech Hit") by inputting a throw as or while the player character is being thrown. This will either free the character entirely, or reduce the throw's damage and often prevent it from knocking down and return the character to a normal jump state.

The Magic Series

Every character in Marvel vs Capcom 2 is capable of chaining normal attacks together in a sequence known as the "Magic Series". Magic series chains follow a basic order of allowing chains from any weaker normal to a higher-strength normal, as well as chaining from punch to kick normals of the same strength:

> > > > >

While this is the basic framework for how normal chains function, this is not universal. Rather, every character will have access to one of three different types of Magic Series chain:

• Hunter Chain: Allows a full six-normal chain ( > > > > > ).

• Marvel Chain: Allows chaining only from weak normals to strong normals ( or > or > or )

• 2-Hit Chain: Allows light normals to chain only to medium or heavy normals, but not in sequence ( or > , , , or ).

The attack orders of the Hunter and Marvel chains are not strict. While they allow for full 6- and 3 hit chain sequences, middle step in their chain sequence can be skipped, so long as the basic order of the chain is followed. For example, characters with the Hunter chain can do > > > , and those with the Marvel chain can do > . Finding which buttons can be left out of ground and air Magic Series chains is a key way to optimize combo damage, so experiment! Lots of characters can skip mediums entirely by comboing a light straight into a heavy. However, depending on the character, their heavy attacks may not actually combo from their lights. Shuma's grounded s can't combo off of his four grounded lights, but both of his s can.

Which Magic Series chain each character has (when grounded, and when in Normal Jump state) will be listed above their grounded and aerial s in their Normal Attacks sections.

Air Combos

Air Combos (known in Japanese as "Aerial Raves") are the most common way for characters in Marvel vs Capcom 2 to structure their combos, alongside use of the Magic Series. Air Combos largely revolve around the use of superjumps - as noted in the Movement section, superjumps often allow for chains and cancels that would not be possible from a normal jump. Almost every character in the game has access to at least one move which will launch the opponent into the air - on hit, holding an upward direction will cancel the launcher into a superjump, allowing the use of an air combo.

Flying Screen

Attacks that are flagged as air combo "enders", such as most heavy normals when in the Super Jump state, as well as some Hyper Combos, will trigger a state known as "Flying Screen," so called because it causes the defending character to "fly" through the air at high speed with a distinct whistle-y sound, with the camera focused on them. Attacks that trigger Flying Screen are important to utilize, since knockdowns caused by Flying Screen disable the defender's ability to Tech Roll, which can create highly advantageous situations for the aggressor, including guaranteed mix, okizeme, and even combo extensions with the right setups. These combo extensions rely on the use of an exploit known as Flying Screen Deterioration (or "FSD"), which will be detailed on the Esoterics page.

Defensive Systems

Blocking

Attacks in Marvel vs Capcom 2 are blocked by holding a directional input away from your opponent - 1, 4 and 7 are all valid inputs. Hold 4 to block all mid and high attacks; hold 1 to block all mid and low attacks. Most attacks can be blocked while airborne, which allows for chicken-blocking - holding 7 to jump and begin blocking airborne as soon as possible.

Guard Breaks

In Marvel vs Capcom 2, it is only possible to perform one aerial action per aerial period during a normal jump. After this aerial action has been expended, the player character cannot perform any more aerial actions until landing, and will only regain their aerial actions upon jumping again. Blocking counts as an aerial action in this instance, so when in a normal jumping state, if the player enters and then exits blockstun, they will not be able to do anything else on the way down, including blocking a follow-up attack before touching the ground. This can be used to set up highly practical Guard Break situations that allow for guaranteed offense or even combos, and is particularly powerful when used against an incoming character, since the incoming character is put into the Normal Jump state.

Pushblock

Pushblock (officially named "Advancing Guard") is a universal defensive system that can be used by pressing both punch buttons while in blockstun. It is possible to pushblock attacks both on the ground and in the air.

A successful pushblock will trigger a unique sound and special effect around the front of your character, and will push the opponent a set distance away from you. Pushblocking will only create distance when blocking attacks from the opponent's point character; pushblocking an assist attack will not result in any extra pushback. Notably, the "pushing" effect of pushblock only affects the player whose attack was blocked, meaning that if the player pushblocks an attack from an opponent who is in the corner, the pushblock will (somewhat counter-intuitively) negate the pushback of any attack. Performing a pushblock in the air will hold the player character in the air for a period of time, allowing it to be used to delay the player's landing from an airborne situation.

Pushblocking does not result in ordinary blockstun - triggering a pushblock effectively puts the player character into what is best thought of as a set pushblocking animation. This pushblocking animation lasts for 23 frames, and has a number of unique properties:

• Attacks will continue to be blocked throughout the animation, but attacks will not inflict standard blockstun for its duration
• The pushblock animation is capable of applying high and low guard status at the same time
• At the end of the pushblock animation, characters will become actionable if they do not re-enter their blocking animation

These properties lead to two very important defensive techniques: Pushblock All-Guard and Pushblock Guard Cancel.

Pushblock All-Guard

Pushblock All-Guard refers to the ability for the pushblocking animation to effectively block high and low at the same time. This allows for much safer defensive play than would otherwise be possible on the ground, effectively creating 23-frame windows where the defender does not have to choose to block high or low. To perform a Pushblock All-Guard, hold 2 while performing a standing pushblock or 4 while performing a crouching pushblock - changing the character's blocking stance during the pushblock animation will cause the character to take on the high and low blocking stances at the same time, making it a key tool for defending against the layered high-low mixup situations that many of the game's best characters are capable of enforcing.

Pushblock Guard Cancel

Pushblock Guard Cancel refers to a technique which takes advantage of the fact that pushblocking returns the character to a neutral action state at the end of the pushblock animation, so long as the character does not re-enter their blocking animation. It is commonly used against otherwise completely guaranteed blockstrings, such as those used by Sentinel and Spiral, allowing players to effectively "override" the standard blockstun of key attacks, creating gaps that allow the defender to escape. To perform a Pushblock Guard Cancel, simply pushblock and then perform any action that does not involve inputting a backward direction (as this will trigger the character's pre-block animation, and probably blockstun as a result). This frequently requires very specific pushblock timing so as to not get hit when attempting to escape, but it is a powerful defensive tool that is often vital for navigating common matchups.

Tech Roll

Most knockdowns in Marvel vs Capcom 2 are able to be escaped by performing a Tech Roll or "safe roll". To perform a tech roll, input 412K as the character hits the ground. This will cause them to roll a long distance forward along the ground, granting them full invincibility and often moving them out of the way of guaranteed offense. As noted in the section on Air Combos, attacks that trigger Flying Screen disable the defender's ability to tech roll. Tech Rolls exist as a defensive counter to Off The Ground hits (OTGs), and in most cases, OTG opportunities simply can be avoided by tech rolling.

However, one important thing to note about Tech Rolls is that, even without Flying Screen, some attack sequences are truly unrollable. These are called Juggles, and are Not to be confused with traditional 'OTGs'.

Juggle State & Juggles

If a character is hit off the ground (OTG) out of a knockdown, they will enter the Juggle state, and then perform a Forced Tech Roll if they land during it. The Juggle state moves the defender up and backwards, and critically, they are fully vulnerable to attacks until landing. Since the defender is considered airborne, some attacks can appear to have different properties when hitting characters out of the Juggle state, like Spider-Man's 5HK which launches airborne opponents. This distinction can make the Juggle state extra useful for certain characters' setups or combos, if they have similar quirks to their moves.

When a character enters the normal knockdown state from non-sweep attacks (like Psylocke's Psy-blade, there is a one-frame window before they can Tech Roll (so if they're hit on this frame, it's unrollable!) where they are actually still vulnerable, so a well timed attack or meaty hitbox can put the character into the Juggle state guaranteed. For example, for Magneto's slide infinite, he Juggles with a 2LK into 2HK, Super Jump Cancels the 2HK and airdashes down to land immediately to Juggle with another 2LK into 2HK. Each 2LK is hitting as a Juggle during that one frame of vulnerability, and Juggles don't count toward the OTG limit.

Off The Ground hits (OTGs)

After the one-frame window of vulnerability upon entering the knockdown state, the character can Tech Roll forwards and get out of the situation. If they don't Tech Roll, they're fully open to be hit Off The Ground (or 'OTGs'). Unlike in Marvel 3, OTG isn't a property moves have. Instead, any hitbox that can be placed low enough to hit someone in knockdown can hit OTG. If you enough time (ex: from an assist that knocks down like Psylocke's Anti-Air) you can OTG with air lights just as easily as you can OTG with sweeps. There is a built-in OTG limit of one per combo, but a few attacks (as well as Juggles) don't count towards it. Most knockdowns that occur after an OTG have less knockdown time, so the defender will recover sooner than normal.

Forced Tech Rolls

If a character in the Juggle state lands uninterrupted, they will perform a Forced Tech Roll. Forced Rolls are fully invincible like regular Tech Rolls, but the character rolls backwards instead of forwards, meaning you can obtain or keep the corner if they occur.

Armor Types

Marvel vs Capcom 2 has two broad types of armor states: Super Armor and Hyper Armor. In both instances, armor is a passive ability applied to the character as a whole, rather than to specific moves.

Super Armor is used by Juggernaut, Hulk, and Sentinel, and allows these characters to ignore hitstun from one attack per combo/sequence. Certain heavy normal attacks and other high-damage attacks will "break" this armor, immediately placing these characters into hitstun.

Hyper Armor is used exclusively by Zangief and Colossus during their install Hypers. When Hyper Armor is active, it allows the character to ignore hitstun from an indefinite number of attacks, though they often take extra damage from common sequences due to combo damage scaling not being activated.

Stun

Stun (also referred to as "dizzy" or sometimes "undizzy") is Marvel vs Capcom 2's primary system for preventing infinite combos, repurposed from a more traditional stun mechanic. Each player character has an internal "stun" meter that begins at its maximum value of 80 points. Taking damage from normal attacks will lower this value, and when the stun value reaches 0, the player will be launched into the air in a "spin out" state. The spin out animation is similar to the animation that occurs when hit by a raw tag, but the player will be immune to further damage and recover at the top of the screen in a normal jumping state.

Stun damage is dealt primarily by normal attacks. Stun damage for attacks is semi-random, but stun damage ranges are inversely proportional to the strength of the normal attack - ie light normals deal more stun damage than medium normals, which deal more stun damage than heavy normals. Command launchers, special moves and supers do not deal stun damage. Attacks that hit knocked down opponents, as well as throws and Snapbacks will deal stun damage, but cannot trigger spin out. Additionally, attacks used against Super Armor that would reduce a character's stun value to 0 will instead force the stun value to 1.

The stun meter will reset after the player has not been hit by attacks for 60 frames. A character's current stun value will be retained if they are tagged in or out, but the stun value will also reset whenever they are called as an assist. If a Snapback would reduce a character's stun value to 0, it will instead be reduced to 1.

Hyper Meter

Both players have access to a Hyper Meter (usually simply called "meter") which holds a maximum of five stocks. The Hyper Meter is a critical resource that is spent on some of the game's most powerful options.

Hyper Combo

Commonly referred to as "supers", Hyper Combos are frequently a character's most powerful attacks. They are performed with standard special move motions and either both punches or both kicks (depending on the character and move in question). Most supers can be cancelled into from special moves, and are frequently used as high-damage combo enders or even combo extenders. The vast majority of supers cost one bar of the meter to perform, but a select few have access to exceptionally powerful Level 3 Hyper Combos, which require three stocks of the meter to perform.

Delayed Hyper Combo

Delayed Hyper Combo (often referred to as "DHC") is a system that allows for a character's Hyper Combo to be cancelled into another character's super, and is performed by simply inputting another super while a super is currently being performed. Each DHC sequence allows for one super per character that is currently alive; for example, if the full team of Magneto/Storm/Sentinel is alive, then the DHC sequence of Magnetic Tempest > Hail Storm > Hyper Sentinel Force is able to be performed as long as the player has at least three bars of meter (one for each of the supers). Performing a DHC will immediately remove the point character from play, placing them into the third character slot and cycling in the second character. DHCs are extremely potent due to their ability to not only tag out characters with relative safety, but also due to their removal of otherwise standard startup frames from certain supers, making them much faster than they would be otherwise.

Team Hyper Combo

Team Hyper Combo (referred to as "THC") is a super attack that causes a player's entire remaining team to enter the screen, performing each character's super simultaneously. It is performed by pressing A1+A2, and will cost as many bars of meter as there are characters still alive on the player's team. The super a character performs during a THC is determined by their assist type - these will be noted on character pages. Note that THC can be performed without a full team or without three meters - performing a THC with only two characters remaining will simply perform a two-character THC, while performing a THC with less than three meters will bring in as many characters to perform the THC as there are meters to be spent on the supers. THCs are usually seen less than DHCs due to their utility being much more niche, but there are a number of specialist teams with notably strong THC synergy, especially thanks to the extremely simple input allowing for much easier on-demand usage than a standard super.

Alpha Counter

Alpha Counter (officially referred to as "Variable Counter") is a guard cancel mechanic performed by inputting +/ while in blockstun, at the cost of one bar of meter. Variable Counters can only be performed while on the ground, and will immediately tag out the point character, bringing in the chosen character to perform a special move. The special move a character performs for their Variable Counter is determined by their assist type - these will be noted on character pages. Notably, since Variable Counters simply result in the chosen character performing their special move after entering play, it is possible to cancel Variable Counters into supers. The utility of this differs depending on the character, but for certain characters it can be an invaluable - if expensive - defensive option.

Snapback

Performed by pressing 236A1/A2 at the cost of one bar of meter, Snapbacks are a unique offensive option that, upon hitting, will force the opponent to switch their point character with one of their assist characters. The character that gets "snapped in" by a Snapback is determined by the button used to perform it - 236A1 will snap in the opponent's second character, while 236A2 will snap in the opponent's third character. On top of the standard benefits of a Snapback, such as forcing specific in-game matchups and creating incoming pressure/mixup situations, Snapback will also briefly disable the character that was "snapped out", marked by their life bar being darkened and marked with a red X. During this lockout period, the character that was snapped out will be unable to be used as an assist, or in DHCs, THCs and Variable Counters. If a Snapback is performed on a character with no alive teammates, they will simply be knocked down.

Double Snap

Another extremely powerful benefit of Snapbacks is found in the Double Snap exploit. If a player and that player's assist are both hit by a Snapback, the point character will be snapped out as normal, but the assist character will remain on screen in a knocked down state. If, in this situation, the Snapback is performed using the button that corresponds to the slot that the assist occupies on the defender's team (ie hitting both the point character and the opponent's second character with 236A1), the game will fail to send in a character from the opponent's team, as the character targeted by the Snapback is still on screen and in hitstun. Coupled with the unique weaknesses assist characters face when being punished, a well-placed Double Snap is capable of creating situations where a player is able to effectively freely combo the opponent's assist character to death with no worry of interruption, making them an absolutely devastating tool when used effectively.