Marvel vs Capcom Infinite Misc gameplay mechanics for beginners/MVCI-specific

Movement

1. Any dashes can be done by pressing LP+HP together. This works in the air as well.

2. During dashes, you can't block unless you cancel out of it with a down direction (see Wave dashing below).

3. Wave dashing - a technique where you cancel your current dash into a crouching position. This allows you to chain multiple dashes together; some characters run faster with wave dash, some don't.

To do a basic wave dash, perform the following motions:

Forward Wave dash : LP+HP, d, LP+HP, d......

Backward Wave dash : b+LP+HP, d (or d/b), b+LP+HP, d (or d/b)......

4. For character with 8 way air dashes (eg Nova / Captain Marvel / Ultron / etc), you can point your air dash by pressing a direction and LP+HP together. A common technique called triangle jumps is to jump and immediately do a down-forward airdash followed by a quick normal for a fast overhead (has to be blocked high).

5. Some air dashes slows down towards the end of the dash. For example, doing a raw air dash WITHOUT any moves for Iron Man will cause him to slow down towards the end of the dash. To overcome this, press a normal during the air dash to keep your air dash momentum going. Whiffing a normal move deliberately is a good way to land on the ground quickly to sneak in a low attack when doing triangle jump mix-ups.

6. New to MVCI is the short hop (almost like King Of Fighters style); you can do this by doing a super jump (d,u), and immediately pressing down. The jump arc is shorter than a regular jump. A unique property to this is that you will automatically face your opponent once you jump over him, leading to pseudo universal crossup mechanic.

7. For clarification purposes to point #6 above, jumps work like this when you jump over your opponent :

Normal jump - you will always face forward from where you jumped; meaning, if you jumped over your opponent from left, you will always face left until you land.

Super jumps - you will automatically face the opponent after you're jumped over him; meaning, if you jumped over your opponent from left, you will turn around to face him. This applies to short hops (point #6 above).

Tagging

1. Tagging is always free, no matter what your current character is doing (except when getting hit).

2. While tagging in, your incoming character will run into the opponent if he's close enough, giving you an extra hit. While this can be useful for certain situations (e.g. blockstrings, continuing combos), sometimes you do NOT want to add that extra hit. You can make your incoming character NOT run into the opponent by holding back (or up-back to jump backwards).

3. The incoming opponent will always come in the direction where your current character is facing; this means that if you jump over the opponent, and tag, your incoming character will run in from the front direction, not where your current character is. Useful for sneaky left/right mixups.

Defense Mechanics

1. Push blocking reduces your chip damage (damage taken ). Keep in mind this makes your blockstun longer (meaning you're stuck in block longer), so for some situations, it's probably better to take the chip damage to avoid nasty situations.

2. A good way to avoid high/low mix-ups is to chicken block by holding up-back; this effectively lets you avoid high/low attacks. It should be noted though, that you take chip damage from blocking any moves (including normal moves) while in air. By contrast, normal moves do not deal chip damage to you on the ground. Also, on the pre-jump frames (the first few frames of your jump animation), you won't be able to block, so if you're stuck in a situation where a move is directly overlapping you (this situation is referred to as meaty), jumping will make you take the hits in a grounded state.

3. Holding tag while your current character is being hit in combos will bring in your partner. Keep in mind that your partner is not invincible to the opponent's attacks, so it's not a free get out of jail card.

4. When your current character dies, and your next incoming character is jumping in, you can choose 3 positions to land. Hold forward to land closer to the center of the screen, neutral (no direction) for default landing, and back to land closer to the corner. This is essential for avoiding certain setups on incoming.

Combo Mechanics

1. Combo scaling (how long you can carry out your combo) in MVCI works by damage, not by hits. This means the higher damage you've racked up in your combo, the more likely the opponent is to flip out of your combo.

2. Cancelling normals into air dashes are done in this manner :

General rule is that you're able to cancel a normal into an air dash like a special move.

So taking Ultron as an example, you would do the HP > dash > HP with the following input :

HP > direction + LP+HP > HP.

There's a trick to it though - You can actually use this shortcut instead if you want to do multiple HP > dash > HP in a row. When you're in a dash, pressing LP+HP would give you a HP, therefore :

HP > direction + LP+HP > LP+HP (HP comes out instead) > LP+HP (dash) > LP+HP (HP...)

If you've binded a button to LP+HP, you can just continuously mash that button to do the above; just make sure to start with a HP first.

Rules for these type of cancels are :

1. Since you're allowed only one airdash per jump (normal / super jump), you'll be able to cancel one air dash from a normal.

2. In flight/float, you can do this indefinitely until your flight runs out.

Gem Mechanics

1. Gems are considered special move in terms of properties; this means you can special cancel into them from normals, and tag/super cancel out of them (need clarification on whether this works for all gems).

2. You can activate Infinity Storm when in block-stun (while you're blocking); this can act as a kind of counter if you're locked down in blockstun.

3. You are not on negative frames after activating a gem, despite the look of it. This means you're able to block immediately after activating it.

4. Even with all shortcuts turned off, you can do your lv3 super while in Infinity Storm by pressing Gem Surge + Tag.

5. All Level 3 Supers are free in Infinity Storm; this means that even if you do not have any super meter, you can execute it for free during Infinity Storm.

6. If your opponent activates Infinity Storm, you will not be able to activate your own Infinity Storm. On the occasion that you execute it on the exact time, the game mechanic determines which frame the game is on, and gives priority with the following rule :

Even frame - Player 1

Odd frame - Player 2

Misc Tips

1. You can do up to 3 special moves (except for some exceptions / Flights) in the air; for example, using Ryu, you can do up to 3 hadokens in the air before you land.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1155001663

Misc gameplay mechanics for beginners/MVCI-specific