How To Play Peacock (in Skullgirls 2nd Encore+)

How to Play Peacock is a video series on learning Peacock in Skullgirls 2nd Encore+. It's based around teaching people the character from scratch by starting with a basic gameplan and slowly expanding on it, instead of just listing all her moves in button order. You can see the completed episodes in this youtube playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLF3ZhfpbUOX0YUOIu4kxWy0ANucEwKe1P

Producing tutorial videos takes a long time and I don't want people to get stuck waiting for me to finish recording them, so here are the draft notes for all future lessons. They're far from complete, but they should be enough to see what you should learn next.

Remember: only move onto the next lesson once you're completely comfortable using all of the previous lesson's concepts in real matches. Otherwise, you're wasting your time.

Lesson 1: Intro, sHP, M Item Drop (video here)

Standard fighting game character guides blow. Listing every move in order is not how you learn a character. So HERE'S how you learn Peacock, from the ground up. You learn a lesson, go play matches until you're comfortable doing everything you learned against real opponents, then come back and do the next lesson. Doing it in order is important. Oh, in case you didn't know, Peacock is a powerful projectile zoner character who also has strong pressure and mixups, but has a very hard time escaping from pressure and mixups herself.

One last thing before I start the first lesson for real: they mostly teach one or two moves at a time, in order of importance, to help you build up a gameplan once piece at a time. The rough order they ended up in was:

1. How to stop them getting close
2. What to do if they get close
3. What to do if you manage to stop them getting close
4. What if you want to get close

Note that in the Peacock mirror, your opponent's main objective usually isn't to get close to you. So when practising the concepts in these early lessons, you should play against other characters.

Lesson 1: sHP, M item, backdash. sHP is a horizontal projectile that goes fullscreen, and M item is a vertical projectile that stops them from getting close and can work as an anti-air.

You use M item by holding it, then releasing it when they get close. Basic gameplan: back off, shoot sHP projectiles, start charging an item when it's safe to do so, backdash when the opponent is starting to get close, block when you don't have time to backdash or sHP. Release the item on your opponent if they try to hit you.

It's dangerous for your opponent to attack you when you have an M item charging, so you should watch out for how your opponent acts when they have an item charging on top of them. If they're not scared of the item and they keep playing aggressive, just keep dropping items on them and enjoy the free hits. If they start running away and waiting for the item to drop, try to chase them down. This is what stops you from getting backed into the corner. If you land a level 2-3 item or a point-blank sHP, shoot them with argus. This is the *only* time you should be using argus for now. Don't just randomly do it in neutral or anything.

Advanced tips:

• Release your item just before it reaches level 3 if your opponent runs out of range, because there's a long cooldown after level 3 item before you can call another item.
• If your opponent crouches and blocks or superjumps straight upwards when you run at them with an item, run under or jump over them and release the item for a crossup mixup.

Lesson 2: H Teleport (video here)

Problem: I still get backed into the corner! (Other problem: you can't get out of pressure so you die when you get hit, but it's best to take things one step at a time so we're ignoring this for a while. Just try and block/pushblock as much as possible and try to make space to drop an M item. If you're learning offline with a training partner, you can even agree to pause and restart the game each time they land a combo on you)

Lesson 2: H teleport. This teleports you past your opponent to escape the corner. It's punishable if you just randomly do it, because you always appear right next to your opponent. Ways to make it safe:

• Do it right as you think your opponent is about to jump or charge forwards, so they end up jumping away from where your teleport ends.
• Make them block a projectile as you recover. You can't do H (or M) teleport while holding an item, so cancel sHP into H teleport right as the projectile comes out. Don't get predictable!

Advanced tips:

• Remember that once your opponent starts trying to bait out teleport, it gives you more space to sit back and zone for free.
• Doing H teleport right after calling projectiles or assists that have slow startup can give you sick crossup mixups, but remember that it puts you close to your opponent so it's sometimes a better idea to stay fullscreen and keep zoning instead of teleporting in. Also, each strength of teleport has a different voice line, so strong opponents who are paying attention will listen out for the H teleport line and block accordingly.
• The ambiguous M item drop crossup we mentioned in lesson 1 is another great way of escaping the corner if you already have an item held and your opponent is already close enough that you don't want to risk using teleport, so keep that in mind if you get forced into a situation where teleporting seems like a bad idea.

Lesson 3: L George (video here)

Problems: sHP into teleport leaves you in a dangerous situation, and you don't have any anti air moves other than M item (which has a cooldown).

Lesson 3: L George. It stays on screen for ages and protects you. Like Peacock's other projectiles, it doesn't go away when you get hit.

Uses:

• Works as an anti air (may need backdash first).
• Throw it and H teleport when it gets close to them for a safer teleport, which even gives you time to combo afterwards (you can just do argus or you can learn the beginner combo now. If you learn the beginner combo, hit confirm by stopping after the sLP or cMP if they block).
• Throw it out to keep you even safer if you're about to run at the opponent with an item held.
• Throw it after point blank sHP to make it safe on block.

Don't just throw it out for no reason, because you can only have one on screen at once. It also counts towards your global limit of two Georges at once, which will matter when you start using M and H George.

Advanced tips:

• Get in front of it and it acts as a combo breaker.
• If the opponent jumps over it as you teleport past them, you can run away and zone and keep it right in front of you to stay really safe.

Lesson 4: jHP (video here)

Problem: Opponents can jump over everything but M item, which has a long cooldown and needs to be reloaded/charged after each use, and L George, which only covers certain angles and doesn't let you have two on screen at once.

Lesson 4: jHP. It's a big disjointed air to air move that moves you backwards, can be cancelled into air backdash, deals good damage by itself, and combos into M item release (into argus). It's a good spacing tool, especially with an item held and an L George on the floor. It has slow startup so you have to predict their jump; if you try to do it on reaction or if they expect it, it will usually lose to faster air moves. You can jump forward up or back when you do jHP, depending on where you think they will be.

Your Peacock has a pretty good shell of defensive moves at this point!

Advanced tips:

• jHP airdash cancel jHP for double the damage, at the expense of using your airdash so you can't run away afterwards. Running away with air backdash is usually the better option, but the double shot is good if you're confident that it's going to hit or if you think the opponent will wait for jHP to whiff then jump after you. 
• Jumping over someone and whiffing jHP pushes you back over them! It's great for faking a crossup if you jump over someone's head with M item held. This doesn't happen much in neutral, but you can do it after a throw or as a reset (with some assists) so you'll get to use it more later on.

Lesson 5: Defensive moves. cLK, jLP, airthrow, M bang.

Problem: you still have no up-close defensive moves other than anti air L george and lots of blocking, and all your moves have slow startup.

Lesson 5: defensive moves. cLK, jLP, airthrow, M bang: these are your main anti airs and your main ways out of pressure. This is a big lesson.

cLK is one of your fastest ground normals and your main grounded anti air, and it combos into cMP sHK on hit. Stop after cMP when hit confirming, or go into L George and block. After sHK hits, just go into argus for now. It stuffs instant airdash attempts, pokes out of gaps in pressure and beats most jump ins, but can't deal with heavily disjointed moves like val jHP and despite its fast recovery, it can still be baited out by opponents who slightly delay their landing.

jLP is your fastest air normal, so jump forward with it to preemptively hit your opponent before they do their jump in attack. Combo out of it with jLP jLK jHP airdash jLP jMP (this is hard if you're new to Peacock!), or just end after jHP if you don't want to deal with Peacock airdash cancels yet.

Airthrow is even faster than jLP and it can catch opponents who jump at you and airblock, but you can't buffer the throw input during jump startup so it takes a bit of practice. Combo airthrow into jMK argus, or jLK into the beginner combo.

M bang is your only hit-invincible move, but don't treat it like a standard invincible anti-air. Its slow startup and short hitbox makes it hard to time correctly against jump-ins, and your opponents can make it whiff during corner pressure by jumping towards you or throwing you out of its long startup. The main uses of M bang are to beat out horizontal approaches and to use it very occasionally while being pressured, just so your opponent knows you're willing to use it and has to avoid using their bang-unsafe setups. On hit, link it into argus agony. There is plenty of time to hit confirm this during M bang's recovery, so don't just cancel it into argus and hope that it works! If your opponent is near the corner, M bang will cause a wallbounce and you can continue the combo with OTG cLP or cHK.

Note that M item drop can also be used as an up-close defensive move, but remember that releasing the button during blockstun means the item won't fall until long after you exit blockstun. If you want to drop M item defensively after blocking something, make sure you wait until a gap in your opponent's pressure before letting go of MP.

Note: This is a very long lesson. When practicing these concepts, feel free to concentrate on learning one new move at a time and treating this as four separate lessons. Also note that Skullgirls has very strong universal defensive mechanics in the form of pushblock, pushblock guard cancel (PBGC), chicken blocking/land cancelling and absolute guard. None of these are Peacock-specific so I won't explain them in this guide, but being able to use these mechanics well is one of the main factors that separates expert and intermediate players. Sydoh's defense guide and Dekillsage's land cancelling/chicken blocking video are great resources.


Advanced tips:

• You can make M bang safe when you're cornered by using L item drop.
• We won't go into mixups until later, but cLK (or sLP/cLP) is a good fast move to throw out after chicken blocking (airblocking very close to the ground so you land before your opponent) or after blocking an unsafe move.
• jLP is also a strong tool on offence. Later on we'll teach you about instant airdash jLP, resetting with jLP into a ground throw, and so on.

Lesson 6: M and H George

Problem: you barely deal any damage to patient opponents, and you don't have anything that hits fullscreen except for sHP.

Lesson 6: M and H George. Here's where your chip damage comes from! If your opponent backs off and starts blocking, fill the screen with bombs to start dealing serious chip damage and make them come to you. You can cancel a bomb into another one to quickly fill the screen, but you can only have two bombs onscreen at once so after doing H>M George, you have to wait until they disappear before throwing more bombs..

sHP>H George>M George is the fastest way to throw a bunch of projectiles fullscreen, but it still takes a while so only do this when you're at a safe distance. If you're slightly closer, you can throw a single bomb then block and wait (e.g. if you're scared of Filia forward jump into downward airball).

Single bombs also work when L George is preventing you from putting two more bombs out, and H>L or M>L George is good if you want to transition from zoning to approaching with L George backing you up.

It might take a while to get consistent at throwing bombs without accidentally missing an input but it's very much worth doing so; no one wants to zone perfectly for 30 seconds then lose because they accidentally whiffed sMK or sHK from fullscreen when they meant to throw a bomb.

Remember you can throw bombs while holding an item, and release it to protect yourself if your opponent tries to attack you. If you're playing on a team with a zoning assist, you can call the assist during sHP startup to throw even more stuff out.

H George doesn't really have many other uses, aside from being yet another way to set up H teleport. M George, on the other hand, is an extremely useful combo breaker in lots of situations; call it when you're about to get hit, then the bomb will hit them, interrupt their combo, and let you start a combo of your own. Scottish Peacock player Infy used to call M George "the smart person bomb" for that reason, so whenever you get hit, think "would M George have saved me here?". The answer is often yes.

Note that it's going to be a while until we get to Peacock's mixups, so if you ever manage to force your opponent into the corner, sit just outside their effective range and try to lock them down with projectiles. It's similar to doing it from fullscreen except they have much less room to maneuver, they can't avoid your M item, and they have less time to see your projectiles coming. This is one of Peacock's strongest positions, so make the most of it if you manage to get there!

Lesson 7: H Item Drop

Problem: they can easily jump out of your fullscreen projectile lockdown, especially because you have to wait for both Georges to disappear before throwing more of them.

Lesson 7: H item drop. This gives you fullscreen frame traps and helps lock people down from a full screen away.

Basic fullscreen pattern: H George>M George, sHP>H item, repeat. You can also sHP>H George, and you can skip the M George if there's already an L George onscreen. They can still escape from this if you're being predictable, so the best way to mix things up is to hold the H item drop and release it right as you think they're about to jump out. This deals decent damage by itself on hit, and puts them right back in the zoning...zone. Try to keep them there as long as possible; this is where a lot of your damage comes from!

Advanced tips:

• You can deal a decent amount of chip damage by doing hold H item, argus, release H item in gap between the initial beam and the second part. If you have meter to spare and your opponent is low on life, consider doing it.

Lesson 8: H Bang

Problem: they can still jump or dash out of your zoning when you're not holding H item. You know exactly when their Cerebella is about to do Tumbling Run, but none of your projectiles can hit her fast enough!

Lesson 8: H bang. It's your fastest way to hit a long range opponent other than releasing an item, and you can cancel into argus on hit. It has a lot of recovery so you will probably die if they jump over it, especially because the times when you most want to use it are the times when you don't have an item held. So only use it when you're very confident that it will hit! Your object is to use it just enough to make them scared of always dashing at you at the first opportunity, at which point you can go back to using your other, safer projectiles.

Lesson 9: jHK

Problem:When your item drop is on cooldown you don't have any midrange zoning tools or air coverage other than jHP.

Lesson 9: jHK. Use it for avery (the bird projectile). It moves up then falls down, gets in your opponent's way, and buys you time to summon an item, run away, or throw some bombs.

Ways to use it:

• Jump back, whiff jHK
• jHP, air backdash, whiff jHK
• Instant airdash, whiff jHK
• Jump forward, whiff jHK, air backdash

jHP, air backdash, whiff jHK is kind of a freebie after jHP, but the others should only be used when you're at a safe distance, when your opponent is blocking another projectile, or when you know they're going to freeze up for half a second. Otherwise, it's likely that aggressive opponents will hit you out of your jHK startup. Remember that you can't block while doing jHK, so be careful of full screen threats like sniper shot, car, and cannon.

By this point, you basically have your entire fullscreen and midrange zoning toolset! Congratulations!

Lesson 10: Throw and airthrow. Mixups Part 1.

Problem: you have no mixups or pressure, so you're missing out on lots of potential damage.

Lesson 10: throw/airthrow (mixups part 1). If you push your opponent into the corner or force them to block your bombs up close, you can go for a mixup to try and convert into a combo.

You're already using airthrow defensively, but you can also use it to grab people who jump away from you when you run at them with an item held. Similarly, ground throw can grab people who freeze up and block on the ground. Peacock's ground throw has a surprisingly long range, so take advantage of it and force your opponents to worry about throws from a long distance.

If you land a ground throw and they're almost dead, cancel it into argus for the kill. You can also combo in the corner with H item > argus> release item, sLP, but it's fairly low damage so it's often best to just go for a setup after the sliding knockdown.

Midscreen setup after ground throw: charge M item or throw L george, run forward, jump over your opponent, optionally double jump back over them or whiff jHP to go back to the same side. Go into a combo on hit. You can also go for teleport mixups, but the different versions of teleport have different voice lines so your opponent can hear which side you'll be on.

Corner setup after ground throw: charge M item then throw M George. This gives you lots of protection to go for more mixups, but the corner mixups that give you the most damage are usually high/low and I'll explain those in another lesson soon.

Lesson 11: Basic Block Pressure

Problem: you have no way of keeping the pressure on your opponent up close, aside from running at them after they block your projectiles.

Lesson 11: Block pressure. sLP is plus on block (i.e. you finish recovering before they do), cMP is even, L George and cMK are slightly negative but safe. So if you run in for a combo and want a low-risk starter, try to hit confirm with sLPx2 or sLP cMP so you don't get punished. If they block something unsafe, chain into L George and be careful of them trying to poke out afterwards.

Pushblocking is strong in Skullgirls and most people can pushblock everything other than your fast light moves on reaction, so don't do anything more than a single sLP if you want to tap your opponent with something fast then go for a mixup on block. Against opponents who pushblock you away or are scared to poke out of your pressure, you can throw H>L George or M>L George to lock them down and run forward to continue your pressure, but don't get predictable or they'll hit you out of the gap before the L George.

Lesson 12: cMK and instant airdash jLK/jLP. Mixups part 2.

Problem: your mixups are predictable, especially in the corner. You don't have any high/low mixups, just lots of throws and the occasional item drop crossup.

Lesson 12: cMK and instant airdash jLK/jLP (mixups part 2). These are your high/low mixup.

None of Peacock's light normals are lows, so her 14 frame cMK is her fastest low. It's pretty slow so you can't just throw it out unless you know your opponent is too scared to attack, but it's great at catching people who try to jump away from you or are expecting a throw. It's especially strong against people who always upback after blocking your sLP.

Level 3 items are overheads, so although Skullgirls' unblockable protection stops you from creating humanly unblockable setups, you can still do some really nasty 50/50s with cMK+ lv3 item where your opponent must guess which one will hit first.

To catch an opponent who blocks low without having a level 3 item available, your fastest overheads are instant airdash jLK or jLP. jLK is fairly fast, hits 3 times (so is great against armor), and combos into sLP. jLP is slightly faster than jLK and therefore harder to block on reaction, but it's very hard to combo from unless you do it close to the ground with upforward+MK, neutral, forward+LP. You can learn this later and stick with instant airdash jLK unless you really like learning weird input tricks like that.

Advanced tips:

• Jumping avoids ground throws, so counterattack with an instant airdash overhead when you're certain that your opponent is about to throw you.

Now you have a full set of mixup tools! Just remember that it's incredibly hard for Peacock to escape from pressure once she gets hit, so don't go for mixups all the time and don't be afraid to back off and
go back to zoning if you think they'll reversal out of your pressure.

Future lessons that I have not written yet:

• jMK: Catches people who run towards you, e.g. if Ms Fortune sees you jumping and tries to run underneath a potential jHK. Also works against people who try to press a button on the ground while you're high above them. You can do two in a row with jMK adc jMK, and you can use a level 2-3 item drop to land and convert. At low heights, you can get a full combo with jump back jMK adc jLK(1 hit) jMP. Advanced: lets you do short jumps in combos, either with an assist, after OTG item drop hits, or after something unusual like sHP (1 hit) > M george > L george. This lets you set up crossunder resets with jMK>jHK, or crossover resets with jMK > airdash > release item.
• cHK: Breaks armor, and catches people who don't expect another low after cMK or cHP. Cancel it into bombs to start your zoning. On block, cancel into L George or release M item. If you don't have either of those available, you can spend a meter to stay safe by canceling into L bang > Lenny. cHK also lets you slide under people for resets or to escape the corner if you're brave (e.g. you're in the corner, your opponent jumps forwards, you do cHK > crossunder M bang > combo).
• L teleport: lets you move backwards while dodging moves (e.g. brass assist, or a jump in attack that you don't have time to anti-air or avoid with backdash). Unlike M and H teleport, you can do it while charging an item, but you can't turn it into into a fake teleport. You can cancel your first George throw into L teleport, which lets you throw out a bomb and quickly move backwards or dodge an attack. Remember that even though this move is essentially an invincible version of your backdash, it still has the same vulnerable recovery as all the other teleports so it's still worth using your regular backdash if you don't need the teleport invincibility. Also, you can cancel your regular backdash at any point into blocking (with upback) or into any move, e.g. canceling it into M item drop if your opponent decides not to chase you down. Advanced: If you have an item held, whiffing cHK below an airborne opponent then using L teleport to go back to the original side as you release your item is an awesome mixup.
• Basic resets: sMK, jLP jLK (3 hits) jHK into crossunder or airthrow. Or at any point during a combo when your opponent is on the ground, go into cMK or instant airdash jLP/jLK.
• Lenny: Acts as a shield against lots of moves, deals lots of damage to the opponent and their assist when it blows up. Especially good against big band. Dropping it while stuck in the corner often forces your opponent to ease up for a second right before it explodes, giving you a chance to escape. Lets you convert fullscreen hits into a combo with Lenny>argus.
• Fake teleport: Hold any punch button during the startup of M or H teleport. You stay underground for longer, appear in the same place that you started, and a small bomb pops up and explodes after you recover. The mini bomb explosion will break most combos, so your opponent usually has to throw you to get a punish. This move mainly exists to stop Peacock from being able to use M and H teleport with an item held, but it has some uses. If you have L/M item held and your opponent is approaching you, you can duck underground with fake teleport and release the item to cover the gap before the mini bomb hits. This leads to a combo on hit and frame advantage on block, although you're still up close to your opponent and you no longer have an item held. If your opponent blocks your teleport crossup mixups by listening for audio cues, you can use fake H teleport to stay on the same side while saying the voice line for a crossup. This usually doesn't lead to much of a reward, but you might be able to combo into argus by canceling your teleport's recovery. Advanced: Use the fact that it stays underground for longer than regular teleport to avoid moves like Double's car.
• Other normals: sLK, sMP, cHP: sLK and sMP are your fastest long range pokes. Use them when you're slightly too far away to hit with your other light normals. cHP is a long range low. It can be hard to do a full combo from these midscreen without an assist or L Bang > Lenny.
• Round start strategy: Think about what your opponent will do, how confident you are that they will do it, and what will beat it. You can do things like jump back with jHP or jHK to run away, jump forward with jLP or jLK, crouchblock and wait (then airgrab them if they whiff an air move), backdash or L teleport (optionally with an assist), stand there and throw bombs (to win the projectile war if you think they will start by jumping away from you), M bang (if you think they will immediately do a move on the ground), or H teleport (if you are confident they will aggressively move forwards).
• Situational moves:
• L item drop: stays in place so you can use it to beat fast characters like Filia and Valentine who can move fast enough to avoid M item's tracking. It also keeps your MP button free so you can M bang then release the item to make it safe, or taunt while holding an item to get a guaranteed tenrai-ha with your next item drop.
• Tenrai-ha (drop a level 3 item after taunting): Extra lockdown to let you escape from pressure and/or put bombs on the screen. Gives you enough time to safely tag to some characters on block/whiff, and is very easy to convert from on hit. Gives you some extra chip damage too. Other ways to safely taunt: after a throw, after killing a character (sMK, jLK jMP jHK, land, taunt), or after the opponent is forced to block a very long lockdown assist like Robo missiles.
• Roadroller: Happens randomly (5% chance) when doing a level 3 item. Beats armor, doesn't hit assists, and leads to an easy combo with H teleport into OTG cLP. Note that the opponent always falls towards the back of the roadroller after the cutscene ends.
• L bang: Jumping is usually a better way out of throws, but L bang lets you avoid throws and airthrows at the same time. This is good if your opponent likes choosing between those two options (e.g. merry go rilla or excellabella) or has nasty throw+airthrow setups with a throw assist. You can also cancel into it from normals, so you can use it after your normals get blocked to beat things like PBGC cerebella grab super. It's also safe on block (-1 to be specific) if canceled into Lenny.
• Tagging in: Yes it's a move. It comes in wherever your point character is standing. Run away and tag when your opponent isn't thinking about getting close to you, or use it to do a (very risky) burst bait or crossup reset, or as an anti-air into a full combo.
• Tagging out: Do it when they don't expect it, or as a reversal against opponents who don't respect it, or when your next character has enough health that it's worth letting your opponent hit them to save Peacock. If you have a duo, tagging is even better because your opponent can't do as much damage when they punish you. Peacock can combo into some tags with sMK or sHP(1 hit) or with level 2-3 item release.
• Snapback: Yes it's a move. It has a poor hitbox compared to some other snaps but it's occasionally useful for beating armor, especially when you're already committed to a normal attack.
• Matchup-specific strategy. A lot of this is covered in my anti-zoning tools video (and the sequel).

Quotes from Xrd designer Pachi about making fan vote characters more rushdown-based than in previous games

Just putting these in one place so they're easier for me to find.

Source: http://shoryuken.com/2015/09/18/battle-planner-pachi-explains-how-fan-vote-characters-might-change-in-guilty-gear-xrd-revelator/

Note: Guilty Gear Overture is a Herzog Zwei-esque Action RTS so characters from that game are bound to play differently when ported to a 2D fighter. That said, I'm still sad that they didn't take advantage of this opportunity to add some zoners.

------

Dizzy (GG Accent Core +R)
"With her usual style I think her set-play and [Xrd's Yellow] Roman Cancels would synergize well, but I’d like to give her a style where she appears in your face rather than retreats away"

Raven (GG Overture)
"In Guilty Gear 2 Raven had a style to fluster the opponent by attacking the opponent from long range with projectiles, slowing them, and attacking them from behind. I think in GGXrd with the addition of some updates he would be able to do so at mid range."

Valentine (GG Overture)
"Valentine was originally a projectile-based, long-range character, but since some of her moves like Zest and Calvados have been taken by other Valentines (laughs), if she appears we might want to give her a different fighting style."

Justice (GG Accent Core +R)
"In Guilty Gear Accent Core Plus R, she seemed like a fortress with her usage of projectiles, but if we add her to GGXrd I’ll like to give her a fighting style with a bit more mobility. That said, she wouldn’t have free mobility, but I’d to make her capable of creating mix-ups using [her fireballs] and herself."

Dr. Paradigm (GG Overture)
"In Guilty Gear 2, Dr. Paradigm was a character that used his minions to allow him to run about, but I think it would be interesting if he could keep the minions but fight in a more conventional style. I think it would be neat if Roller was a rush move, Bower was an anti-air move and Bone Biter was a move that allowed him to do decoy attacks."

Anji (GG Accent Core +R, not exactly a zoner but had long reach and used his projectile in neutral)
"I want to change his style while keeping the interesting parts of his guard point moves like Kou. It seems like he would be good with a style centering around close-quarters fighting using his guard points to approach."

------

As for the other characters, Testament would be made "a little easier to understand" and Bridget would only keep his mobility "to a certain degree" but nothing was explicitly said about them losing their respective zoning and runaway playstyles. Zappa's three summons might be redesigned/updated, but nothing was mentioned about how they would play either.

Izuna, who was an all-round character in GG Overture, "would be a character with short range but able to fight with a hit-and-run style with his dashes. He would want to place a Daruma doll on the opponent’s wake-up to apply pressure."

With the possible exception of Fanny from Guilty Gear Petit who would "undergo a full model change and become a different character practically", all six of the characters in the article who had a rushdown playstyle in previous games would stay as rushdown in Xrd.

You Don't Get to Choose Which Strategies Are Strong in the Games You Play

Sirlin wrote Playing to Win over 15 years ago, but apparently this is a thing that still needs to be talked about. If you haven't read that book, or at least the section I linked, go do that first.

When you play fighting games competitively, you play to win using any tactic available. This includes rushdown, keepaway, runaway, grappling, and anything in between. If a game is dominated by playstyles you hate, or even if you just hate one of many viable playstyles in a game, you are free to pick another game to play instead. If someone today were to join the Super Street Fighter II Turbo scene and try to get fireballs banned, they would be (rightly) told to go play any of the other popular fighting games with stronger anti-fireball tools. Super Turbo is a game where projectiles are strong, and no amount of complaining will change this.

However, the competitive community's understanding of which strategies are viable changes over time. Sometimes previously weak strategies or characters become viable-but-not-dominant, such as when Urien's unblockable aegis setups were discovered in Third Strike, and sometimes people come up with new top strategies or make old strategies obsolete, such as Valle CC in Alpha 2, Roll Canceling in CvS2, or Sentinel invalidating a large portion of the cast in MvC2.

Things like this are super common with almost every fighting game. This means that even without patches or updates, the game players start playing early in its lifespan isn't the same as the game they're playing by the end.

You could easily imagine someone choosing Third Strike as their main game in 1999 because they thought that parries would eliminate all setplay and force people to make hard reads on offense and defense, only to find out about all manner of unblockable setups and option selects later down the line. For a more extreme example, maybe they only ever wanted to run sick Remy fireball traps all day, which became useless when everyone learned to consistently parry projectiles.

To sum it up, there will be times when new discoveries will cause your favorite game to change, either on a fundamental level or just with the addition of a new non-standard matchup. When this happens, you have two options:

1. Deal with it.
2. Stop playing.

The fact that you liked the "old game" before people knew how to play it properly means nothing. Just as someone can't seriously expect Super Turbo players to ban fireballs because they don't like zoning or MvC2 players to ban Sentinel because so many characters have horrendously bad matchups against him, an old-school Third Strike player can't demand a limit on how many projectiles people can parry per round just because they thought zoning was viable back when no one knew the Remy matchup. It doesn't matter how beautiful they thought their Remy vs Oro SA2 fireball wars were or how boring the spectators think it is when Chun Li just stands there and effortlessly parries every projectile that gets thrown at her; Third Strike is a game where projectile zoning is generally a weak strategy, and you don't get to force your opponents to let you zone just because you assumed that's what the game was about.

The point is, this also applies to Super Smash Bros Melee. It doesn't matter how aggressive and rushdown-oriented the playerbase seems to have collectively decided the game is; if someone can win a tournament with a patient runaway playstyle despite the *eight minute* timer per round, there are only two possible causes:

1. Runaway isn't viable in Melee at the top level but Hungrybox's opponent didn't know the matchup well enough, so it's just a temporary thing and people are complaining about nothing.
2. Runaway is viable in Melee at the top level, in some matchups and/or on some stages. That's just how the game works, and you don't get to force everyone to play aggressive just because you assumed that was the only viable strategy before people knew how to play properly. Deal with it, or stop playing.

Just as people who don't like Fox or Falco don't get to demand a ban on shooting too many lasers and people who don't like Sheik, Marth or Ice Climbers don't get to ban people doing too many chain grabs, people who don't like Jigglypuff don't get to demand a ban on staying back at the ledge for too long. In the unlikely case that Ice Climbers seriously can't deal with Jigglypuff sitting back at the ledge, Ice Climbers players should accept the terrible matchup or pick someone else just like people did vs Sentinel in MvC2. Bowser sucks vs the Melee top tiers too, but I don't hear people demanding bans on every tactic that stops him from being competitive.

I doubt this tactic will end up being top tier and I'll be shocked if tournaments end up being dominated by Jigglypuff vs Jigglypuff timeout-fests, but if that does happen, maybe Melee just isn't a game for people who like rushdown, and no amount of complaining will change this. There's always Project M and Rivals of Aether and Brawlhalla and Brawlout and Icons, not to mention the mountain of standard 2D fighters out there, so hopefully one of those will suit the way you want to play. Regardless of what happens, the answer isn't to ban everything you don't like just because you preferred the game before people knew how to play it properly.