By Derek Daniels, Dan Thompson, and John Choi

September 20, 2000 - By now some of you may have heard about a deadly technique in MvC2 called "Guard Break" which allows you to "break" someone’s guard and attack them while they are unable to block. This article will "break" this technique down in detail so that you can become the cheapest player in your arcade! =)

When you do a super jump, you are allowed to do a multiple number of ‘actions’ such as special, super, and to go in and out of blockstun. But when you do a normal jump, you are allowed to do only one ‘action’ per normal jump, with an ‘action’ being defined as one of the following:

• Chain Combo
• Blocking
• Special Move
• Super Move

Once your action ends, you can’t do anything else for the rest of the normal jump, with two exceptions. First of all, Double/Triple jumping, flying, and airdashing do not apply to this. You can jump, whiff a move, and fall unable to do the remainder of things, and still be able to Double Jump or airdash out of the way of your opponent’s attack. The second exception is special/super moves; regardless of what else you’ve done in the jump, as long as you haven’t done a special/super yet, you can do one of them (and only one). This explains why there is no special into super canceling on normal jumps in MVC2.

There are 3 situations in which your character is considered to be in a Normal Jump, as opposed to a Super Jump. The first and most obvious is when you simply do a normal jump. The second is when you ‘fall in’ from the side of the screen – this happens when your previous character either died, and you are coming in as the new point man, or the previous character was hit with a snapback, which would result in a new point man coming in as well. Note that a normal switch in does not result in your character coming in blocking, they come in attacking. The last situation in which you are considered in a normal jump stems from when you have a character that can fly. If you start flying, you are in a normal jump. This is demonstrated by the fact that you can throw assists, and if you activate flying command again so that you can block in the air, you fall down in a normal jump situation.

The most important thing to recognize from the above is that you can only do an action once, and one of the actions listed is block. That’s right- once you have blocked once during a normal jump, you cannot block again until you land. Of course, if something hits multiple times (such as Ryu’s super fireball, or a blocked air chain) – you can block all the hits of the attack. If the opponent is able to attack you after the first blockstun has ended, however, you are not able to block that next attack.

So, to properly Guard Break someone, you want to have the opponent airblock a move during their normal jump situation, wait a split second until they come out of blockstun, and then attack them before they touch the ground and can block again. You want to try and make the opponent block a move at the peak of their jump to maximize the time between the point where their guard "breaks" and when they touch the ground. You can do this with any attack in the game. This includes physical attacks, projectiles, and even assists! For instance, you can call Commando’s anti air assist with good timing so that he connects with the opponent at the peak of their jump then proceed and nail them after their guard breaks.

As if Cable wasn’t cheap enough before, he’s also able to take better advantage of this feature than just about anyone. After he gets done killing a character, as the new point character falls in – he can do a normal jump and hit Fierce (the gun), which if the opponent blocks, he can land and wait a split second for their blockstun to end, then perform an Air Hyper Viper Beam (AVHB) by using the modified motion of Down, Down/Toward, Toward, Up/Toward+2 punches to nail them before they have a chance to land and block. You can then land and repeatedly link more AHVBs and proceed to kill the new point man before they’ve even had a chance to land! Of course if Cable still has meter, when the last partner on the team comes in, you can use the technique again! Cheap!

You will probably have noticed that we mentioned that the opponent needs to block the Fierce for this to happen. So what happens when the opponent gets smart enough and decides to take the hit instead? Well, since the hitstun from the Fierce gunshot is pretty long, if you are fast enough, you can land and instead of waiting a split second like you would have for their guard to break, you can simply AHVB right away to have it all link together as one combo.

So far, we’ve explained that there are 3 situations in which a normal jump occurs – normal jumping, falling in and de-activation of flying. Falling in is by far the easiest and best opportunity to take advantage of Guard Break, but lets discuss normal jumps also. You have to be careful attempting Guard Breaks on normal jumpers, because they can call assists at any point during the jump, but of course not during blockstun. So what CAN happen is that you do a jumping Jab on the opponent, which they block, then you land first and try to launch, but during that pause inbetween blocking the Jab and being launched, the opponent can call an assist and hit you before your attack hits. Note however that this is extremely hard to time, and you must also have the right assist for all this to work.

Another thing to note is that when a character does a normal jump, such as away from or towards the opponent, they go up to a fixed height, then usually flip before they start their downward descent. If you force the opponent to block before they reach the apex of their jump, they’ll drop down towards the ground from that height immediately, practically eliminating your chance to break their guard.

There are lots of different ways to guard break in this game. Here’s a list some of the practical guard breaks that can be done during normal gameplay, as well as their known counters. Guard Breaks

• Doom: Corner, Jump Jab at peak, air photon array super
      Corner, Jump Jab at peak, d/t+Roundhouse launcher into air combo
  
• Cable: Jump Fierce gun, AHVB
      Jumping up/away Jab at peak, AHVB
      Grenade, AHVB
  
• Storm: Corner, Super Jump Jab at peak, air dash, Strong, lightning attack, lighting super
  
• Juggernaut: Corner, Jump Roundhouse at peak, Headcrush super
  
• Commando: Corner, call Commando Strike (Genity), Standing Jab -> Strong ->
      Roundhouse launcher
  
• Strider: Corner, Call bird, Jab, low Fierce launcher
  
• Magneto: Super Jump Jab, airdash down/towards, Short, Short, launcher
  
• Iron Man: Jump Up+Roundhouse, land and normal jump infinite (Jab -> Strong ->
      Forward -> Up+Fierce)
  
• Spiral: Have the opponent block a sword, then launch
  
• Venom: Jump Roundhouse, land and launch
  
• Ken: Air Huricane kick, land and Guard Break with Jab -> Strong XX ShinRyuKen
  
• Ruby: Jump Jab, Red Fireball Super
  
• Jill: Corner, Call bird, launch into air combo
  
• Mega Man: Corner, Jumping Fierce, launch into air combo
  
• All: Call Cyclops or Commando anti air assist early, launcher
      Jump Jab at peak, call assist

You don’t necessarily have to sit there helplessly as your character gets guard broken. Some characters are fortunate enough to have a way out of some of the guard breaks. Here are some suggested methods to escape.

• Spiral: Teleport
  
• Dhalsim: Teleport
  
• Cammy: Killer Bee super
  
• Cable: AHVB
  
• Akuma: Air Fireball super
  
• Ken: Dragon Punch in the air
  
• All: Air dash
      Air super then DHC into a safe super (such as into storm’s hail)
      Pushblock the air attack to mess up timing and distance

Thanks: We would like to thank Jay Snyder, Alex Valle, Duc Do, Arturo Sanchez, J.R. Guiterrez, Seth Killian and everyone from #capcom.