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.
For a list of character abilities and states, visit The Engine.

The Magic Series

On the controls you have six buttons, four of which control your normal moves, being the first two columns. The top two are your punches and the bottom two are your kicks. The first column, the light attacks, act differently from the second column, the heavy attacks. In previous Marvel/Versus titles you had six normal attacks, light punch, light kick, medium punch, medium kick, heavy punch and heavy kick. However in Marvel vs Capcom 2 there are only four buttons. What they've done this time around is combined the light and medium attacks into one button. On one press of the button a light attack will come out, if you continue to press the button a second time a medium attack will come out. It is not possible to draw a medium attack unless the light attack or previous medium attack has connected with an opponent.

To make the Versus series more fast paced and combo dependant, they added a feature that is known as the magic series. The magic series is a rule that allows you to cancel between normal moves 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 rule is as follows:

{{#motion: LP > LK > MP > MK > HP > HK }}

This is the full magic series. The game allows you to chain all six attacks together in one combo leaving the opponent unable to do anything until they fall out. Unfortunately not every character can do this full combo, but the rule still applies across the cast. In the air it's not always possible to do ("heavy punch > heavy kick") this part of the series because heavy moves tend to have knock down properties. What that means is if you do the move and it connects with the opponent, the character will be propelled away from you to the ground, causing the following attack, heavy kick in this case, to whiff.

{{#motion: LP > MP > HP }}

{{#motion: LK > MK > HK }}

{{#motion: LP > LK > MP > HP}}

{{#motion: LP > MP > MK > HK}}

As you can see, shown here are other examples of what you can do with the magic series. All though 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 punch, light kick, medium punch, medium kick, heavy punch, heavy kick and the character you've chosen can do all five/six hits, it will be allowed.

Assist Attacks

Not only do you have buttons to control your character's attacks, you also have two buttons that can control one of your other two partner's moves, the third column. The top right button controls assist one, the second character in the list and the bottom right button controls assist two, the third character in the list. Upon character selection as you should know you pick three characters as well as an assist type. These assists types determine what attack your partners will do when you press their button. These come in various shapes and forms but tend to be one of their special moves. Only down side is their moves aren't instant as obviously they're not on the screen, so take into consideration the delay as they enter the screen. Don't over use your assists either as although they're an easy attack to whip out, they're still vulnerable to attack from the opponent.

There is an oddity with the assist buttons that prevents them from working on the press of a button. What this means is your partners wont come out if you press and hold it down. Always make sure that you release the button to ensure your assist comes out.

Air Dash

Air Dashing is just what it sounds like. There are a ton of different properties for it. For instance; you can’t block (no matter who you are) 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 are Dhalsim who can reset his super jump by teleporting during some point of his SJ. If you air dash during your normal jump you won’t be able to attack or block until you hit the floor

There are properties that happen when you are in normal jump mode that one take place when you’re super jumping. There are also more properties to keep in mind that happen when those two things are happening and you introduce blocking/push blocking to the equation. I will get into detail about this in another section.

Super Jump

Super Jumping is like a regular jump except much higher and it has different properties and rules once you do it. For instance 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).

Doom's CR.HK can be SJC'd before it finishes. If there is something that causes you to block present you can do CR.HK > SJ(up back) repeat to get meter very quickly.

Assists

Basic Usage

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.

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.

Glitches

Tron Bonne's "Y" Projectile assist results unscaled damage - 15pts per hit.
Per Vidness, an assist that is the same character as the point character does not get counted as an assist hit.
Switch Glitch - after selecting your characters the versus screen will apprear. During this time you can hold either assist button to change your point character at the begining of the match. If you are using a "switched" character, you can hold down any normal attack and that attack will execute the exact moment the match begins. The advantage is that you will be able to get the first attack out before your opponent and if it connects, you can link into a combo, etc... It is widely believed that a well timed attack by the opponent will beat this glitch even if it has the same amount of start up frames, but is un-confirmed to my knowledge.

Snap Back

QCF+ A1 / A2

Your character will perform an animation that will cause the character hit to leave the screen and another to come in (depending on which button you used). The snap back makes whoever you snapped out unable to be called once the other character comes on screen. You cannot DHC into the snapped out character or counter into the snapped out All characters have snap backs. Some have very good reach and speed. Others might have speed but the range is very bad. For example Cammy and Doctor Doom's snap backs have very bad range. Venom and Amingo's snap backs have very good range.

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.

Teching

Tech Rolling

Tech Rolling is when you hit the floor and roll away, this helps you get out of extended combos. However, some people can make their off the ground combos (abbreviated as OTG/’s) unrollable by sticking out their attack before you land on the floor thus the attack sort of hits you before you land even thought it doesn’t look like that in the game. To perform a tech roll you have to do a reverse fireball motion (F,DF,D/B,DB,D) + any punch or kick button. Also, you’re invincible falling down if you got SWEPT (not hit by Psylocke or something!). 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 will need you to mash out if you want to get up quicker (ex. Gamma Crush). Some moves however, are genuinely unrollable – B.B. Hood’s Cruel Hunting super (qcf+pp). Also some supers that carry across the screen like Magneto’s shockwave, it’s unrollable even though there are times when you hit the ground and are OTG’d by another hit of the shockwave. Lastly, some moves require switching the way you have to roll. Meaning that instead of rolling the way you’re supposed to, you would have to do the opposite motion.

The person who isn’t tech rolling can choose which direction the tech roller is going to go by placing himself in a certain side. If he moves to the right of the character the person will roll to the right. A note about rolling is: OTGs don’t cause stun so you can’t dizzy someone if all of your attacks are OTGs. An 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 the person is getting up they are invincible while rising meaning things can be going through them and they will not be hit until they are in standing animation. This means that they can be crossed up while they are getting up. For instance Magneto’s CR.HK can cross them up because if Magneto’s sprite is RIGHT in the middle of the person who is getting up it will cause a lot of confusion on which side to block so it becomes a cross-up and sometimes unblockables happen for that reason. However, if the move the person is trying to do is a low move the person getting up can jump straight out of it since apparently there is some invincibility while you’re jumping to so you never hit standing animation. The only thing that can stop you is a move that would hit you from mid or high.

• The person who caused the guy to fall and roll can control which direction the person will roll by standing or being above the person on a certain side. Sometimes this can also be done by just waiting there after you perform a sweep if you’re Magneto or someone who moves a lot during their sweep. You would just sit there as the guy rolls to the other side (forward). If you were Magneto you could SJC towards them.

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.

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.

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 blue, and the third 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.

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.