Strategy

Long Range

R. Mika is a pro wrestler who idolizes Zangief, so don’t expect much out of her from far away. Your goal here will be to move in. Aggressive opponents will do that work for you, so let them. Zoners will run away and try to keep R. Mika at bay, building meter, staying safe, and hoping to feed her damage as she worms her way forward.

R. Mika has a quick, responsive jump and a crouching slide that goes under many lateral fireballs cleanly (though don’t try it against an especially slow one, like M. Bison’s EX Psycho Blast). Advance by jumping over fireballs or sliding under them. (Note that sliding will take a little practice and needs to be done probably earlier than you first expect.) Adept zoners won’t just throw projectiles willy-nilly and will try to use them so that even if R. Mika jumps over, they’ll have time to anti-air her somehow. Neutral jumps are great in doubtful situations where you don’t want to risk careless damage this way. Simply jump straight up over the incoming projectile just before it makes contact, then walk or jump forward while it’s still on screen; your foe won’t be able to throw another projectile until the first one leaves the screen.

Against Dhalsim, who controls lateral space with his long pokes, you can feel emboldened poking from huge ranges with HP Shooting Peach when you feel certain he’s about to stick out a limb. If he’s using long air-based pokes like jumping or , you can even do this with Wingless Airplane. Worst case, you maybe run into a poke or counter-poke, but best case, you score a knockdown and gain lots of ground and a momentum shift. And just fearing that you’ll do this will make Dhalsim skeptical about spamming pokes into the space between you, perhaps faking long-range pokes with standing or playing more reactively in general, allowing R. Mika to simply walk forward. You can also use HP Shooting Peach as a risky engagement tool against any character from where long range shades into mid range; you want to hit with HP Shooting Peach during the last couple active frames, just as R. Mika starts to descend from her rump attack’s apex. If you can learn to eyeball this range (just about half the screen) and poke with HP Shooting Peach, you have a very useful long-range poke, since it’s relatively safe on block if just the tail end hits. Against Dhalsim specifically, you can also counter-poke his long-range limbs with standing . Crouching rolls forward with a shoulder attack that can counter-hit Dhalsim’s pokes while gaining a little ground. And, if perfectly spaced, Lady Mika also makes a good long-range counter-poke, especially since its priority will overpower any of Dhalsim’s longest, quickest limbs if their hitboxes overlap, resulting in a flipping Crush Counter knockdown on Dhalsim from very far away. Poking from farther than usual with charged standing can also be useful to move forward in spurts while kicking his limbs out of the way, also perhaps causing long-range Crush Counters. Charged will also hop over EX Yoga Fire, giving you an extra option at long range when he spends EX Gauge on more traditional zoning.

Against F.A.N.G.’s zoning, it’s best to bully your way in if possible, dashing in repeatedly under Nishikyu’s trajectory, staying close, and preventing him from setting up behind HK/EX Ryobenda mines. If he throws his Nishodoku V-Skill, just dash in twice directly through the projectile, achieving close range. Better to just pull the poison band-aid off and perhaps get in and hit/throw him immediately than to suffer death by 1000 cuts from long range, respecting his low-damage projectiles too much.

You can use the armor property on R. Mika’s Heated Mic Performance V-Skill, along with the brief projectile hitbox of the bouncing mic itself, against lateral fireballs when you’re not pressed for time. This alone gives R. Mika more to do at long range than most close range-oriented fighters (except Birdie, who also has long-range ways to occupy time with his V-Skill). If someone is really dedicated to chucking things at R. Mika, and you don’t expect an EX fireball, activate Heated Mic a little bit before an incoming fireball hits. With the proper timing, which isn’t exacting, R. Mika will absorb the fireball and gain a meaningful damage buff to your very next command throw attempt, even if you don’t actually charge Heated Mic at all. You can keep charging Heated Mic and see how your opponent reacts: if they throw another single-hit projectile, you can release to drop the mic in time to nullify that one, too. If the enemy starts moving toward R. Mika on reaction to the V-Skill charging, it’s time to let it go so the mic drop can cover her a bit. The armor lasts until the mic bounce, so even if an adversary responds immediately to your V-Skill by dashing and jumping forward (which sharp players will learn to do fairly quickly), the combo of armor plus a bouncing, short-range projectile may still save you from actual punishment. Against their long-range jump-in, for example, R. Mika’s armor may just eat up their attempted punish combo opener, and then on landing, they may be forced to block the mic. If the mic hits them, advantage actually returns to you. Opponents who can jump far enough to fall deep into R. Mika or cross her up can avoid the mic, but the armor absorption might still cover her and give you time to recover and block before their landing follow-up attack. This applies whether you’re using Heated Mic Performance in the long-range neutral game, or after setups like Rainbow Typhoon or Passion Rope Throw. Aggressive, fast-reacting players will probably learn to take any V-Skill use on your part as a cue to rush in, and they’ll get better about economizing their punish attempt depending on their character. Against these types of players, you’ll perhaps have to disregard R. Mika’s V-Skill; save it for more passive and predictable zoners, for hardcore turtlers, and for opponents who don’t quick-recover from knockdowns.

Against an opponent trying to rush in from long range, keep standing in mind as a far-reaching anti-air. It has portions of R. Mika’s upward double hammerfist hitbox that sweep up beyond her hurtbox, meaning that it’ll beat incoming non-invincible attacks if you time it correctly. Crouching is amazing closer up, but it isn’t appropriate against jumps or airborne specials from afar. You can also keep EX Shooting Peach in mind for aggressive ground movement from far distances, as it can blast through a single incoming hit and clothesline an enemy 40 percent of the screen away.

Mid Range

R. Mika’s strongest mid-range threat is charged standing . This requires charge time while you hold , ultimately striking only slightly faster than a forward jump-in attack, but from even farther out. Charged also has low-crushing, lower half projectile-invincible frames throughout, helping R. Mika dodge low-profile pokes and fireballs on the way in. On block, charged actually leaves R. Mika at +2—not only safe, but with mild advantage. It leads to solid combos on hit (Combo 7) and huge combos as a Crush Counter (Combo 11) and is generally one of the best normal attacks in the game. Think of it as similar to a low-jumping, long-reaching dive kick, in practice. Charged isn’t without exploitable weaknesses, though. The opponent can react somewhat like against Balrog specials in previous games, neutral jumping on reaction to R. Mika’s charge. With proper timing, they’ll fall on her for a full punish combo. Charged also isn’t anything special collision-wise, and vulnerable hurtboxes surround R. Mika’s legs on all sides of the kick. A reactive adversary may poke R. Mika out of the air early just before the kick extends, or they may use attacks that overpower charged with invincibility or evasive hitboxes. Characters like Ryu and Zangief can also simply react to its single hit with parry actions, negating your usual advantage on contact. It’s still a great attack, but just be aware of how it’s counterable if you’re predictable with your attempts to barge in with it. Getting your opponent to expend mental effort on watching out for charged can be just as good as actual charged —you can exploit their hesitance by simply dashing or jumping in. Whenever their indecision allows R. Mika to at least dash in, which is a fairly low-commitment action compared with jumping or charging up roundhouse, that’s a win.

R. Mika’s other farthest-reaching poke is crouching , during which she rolls forward about a dash’s distance with a shoulder check. This attack has six active frames (not special-cancelable but Critical Art-cancelable), with an unimpressive hitbox for active frames 1-3 but with a terrific hitbox extending forward ahead of R. Mika’s hurtbox during active frames 4-6. Aim to hit with later crouching frames, and not only will R. Mika strike with the highest-priority part of the move, but she’ll be left safe even on block. Take care whiffing this, as R. Mika just rolls into her foe for a moment after the shoulder hit, which is easy to see whiff. If an adversary reacts poorly to whiffed crouching , though, it may simply become a close-range hit/throw mix-up for you. Spend a few minutes in training mode with different characters as training dummies set to both standing and crouching block, getting a feel for the range of max-range crouching (a “big” like Zangief or Birdie, a “small” like Cammy or Chun-Li, and a “mid” like good old Ryu or Ken).

R. Mika doesn’t have other far-reaching attacks for mid-range footsies, but she walks quickly and has lots of decent pokes with “invincible” tips, where the hitbox extends meaningfully ahead of her vulnerable hurtbox (like with later active frames of crouching ). These include standing , crouching , standing , standing , and crouching . Properly spaced from the edge of their ranges, these attacks can beat out an opponent’s mid-range attacks cleanly in instances where they might otherwise lose the “strength priority” clash.

While walking forward and poking from the edge of mid range, also keep in mind crouching and . These don’t have the great hitbox/hurtbox ratios of previously mentioned pokes, but they’re useful in other ways—crouching because it’s a four-frame low hit and your only safe way to remind adversaries about crouch-blocking, and because it’s a low-crushing kick that allows R. Mika to move forward while attacking.

If you sense passivity in a mid-range foe, you can commit to dashing in and going for an immediate close-range mix-up, like throw/tick-throw, or standing to start a frame trap. You can even get extra-nuts sometimes and dash in aggressively before performing HK Wingless Airplane; it’s a natural reaction for someone to jump away from a grappler suddenly moving in, so the Wingless grab works just fine and will aggravate your opponent. If they don’t jump, HK Wingless Airplane’s long travel time will spring R. Mika well out of ideal punish range. If your opponent is in the habit of sticking things into the space between your characters preemptively to stop your dashes, like whiffing long pokes or tossing mid-range fireballs, you can blast through them with EX Shooting Peach, thanks to its armored period and long reach.

For your own jump-ins, when you anticipate a laggy projectile or poke that you can punish, or when your opponent’s attention is absorbed with the ground game, note that jump-in doesn’t hit cleanly below R. Mika like it might appear; her hurtbox still extends well below her fists. So although jump-in is generally her best, highest-damage jump-in, it won’t cleanly beat out solid anti-airs head-on. Ditto jumping , which hits farther laterally but not as low under her falling body. Jumping is still very good, and it hits at a sharp enough angle under R. Mika that it can be made to hit very ambiguously as a jump-in high up against the middle of the enemy’s body, leading to unexpected cross-ups or fake cross-ups that not even you can predict (think a slightly toned-down version of Sakura or Rolento jump-in from Street Fighter IV). Though it’s weak damage-wise, jumping is R. Mika’s most consistent, highest-priority jumping attack, and it also serves as a reliable, effective cross-up. Dive Bomb gives you shots at a risky occasional change-up to jump-in/cross-up timing.

It’s perfectly fine to just walk forward and use R. Mika’s presence to coax out reactions, which you can counter in simple ways to transition immediately into close-range offense. After seeing R. Mika moving around freely, other offense-minded characters may take initiative to jump in, hoping you’re not ready for a quick air hit or cross-up. Luckily, crouching is an easy anti-air for these angles that gives you an immediate mix-up chance against their air recovery. You can also be ready to shoot down jumps for heavier damage at a moment’s notice with EX Wingless Airplane. If you’re sure your foe will jump and want to give them a different follow-up look, you can also react to their forward jumps with immediate jumping or , both of which hit cleanly above and ahead of aerial R. Mika. R. Mika will land beside them air recovering, ready for close-range offense.

When R. Mika walks forward and pokes with attacks like crouching and while showing a willingness to go for high-payoff jump-ins, you’ll encourage your foes to walk backward or sit in crouch-block more frequently, trying to make your pokes miss and shifting their focus briefly to looking out for jumps. This hesitation helps when you finally go for charged standing , which is a free ticket into close range against an opponent who is likely to end up blocking. But if your adversary is keen to your charged assaults, you can fish for their response by stepping forward slightly and then crouching, as though charging up for the dropkick. This may bait them into a neutral jump that you can shoot down with Wingless Airplane (or Lady Mika, if R. Mika is close enough to walk up and connect with it).

Close Range

Close range is where R. Mika wants to be, and close range near a corner is even better. Her best general purpose buttons up close are standing and crouching , jabs that are active in three frames. Three-frame attacks are a rarity in SFV, and this means that R. Mika can potentially jab into any three-frame gap to instantly flip the frame advantage situation. Crouching leaves R. Mika at +1 when blocked, while standing leaves her at +2, so it’s her best close-range neutral game poke. Her jabs can also be canceled into LP/EX Shooting Peach, so you have a short, solid punish combo whenever the enemy does something that leaves them at -3 nearby.

Crouching hits in four frames and leaves R. Mika at +1 blocked. It is crucial for setting up a low threat (see Combo 1), stopping foes from simply walking backward from R. Mika’s attacks. You can use her crouching sweep to check ground movement nearby, potentially scoring unrecoverable Crush Counter knockdowns against dashes, but it leaves R. Mika extremely punishable when blocked.

Standing also hits in four frames, also leaves R. Mika at +2 on hit and +1 blocked, and has a hitbox that extends comfortably in front of her vulnerable portion, making this great from its tip as well as point-blank. It’s chainable into Stomp Chop (Combo 3), but don’t make this a habit when standing is blocked. If you verify that your opponent is blocking during cross-up , charged , or standing into standing , then go for a command grab or walk-up normal throw. You can also fake the Stomp Chop target combo by doing blocked, then unchained standing , which is mildly disadvantaged but safe when guarded.

Standing is extremely important up close. It’s active in five frames, with a good extended hitbox and decent range. On hit, it creates enough advantage (+7!) to link another standing , standing , Peach Assault, or Passion Press (examples are found throughout the Combos section). Blocked, R. Mika is left at -2—not punishable, but giving up tempo advantage.

Standing standing is better when you’re sure of a hit (like from a clean jump-in), when punishing your opponent’s mistake, or when verifying counter-hit standing standing . Try not to do standing blocked. Standing standing is more lenient and also makes R. Mika much less vulnerable blocked (-2 for vs. a dangerous -6 for ). And standing Passion Press Passion Rope Throw is great to approach and exploit corners. With several follow-up options, along with the threat of her faster jabs backing it up, standing is one of R. Mika’s best gap-closing poke, meaty, and hit-check/frame trap tools.

Other important up-close pokes include and standing (uncharged). Both of these attacks go over an enemy’s low attacks; accomplishes this while moving forward, whereas standing causes a small spinning launch if it counter-hits, while also building up V-Gauge (see Combo 10). These carry more risk than most of R. Mika’s other useful pokes (at -3 and -4 blocked, respectively), but they still have attractive uses. Standing is also good to deploy as a mask for your charged attempts. Seeing you use the uncharged version as a poke may make foes hesitant to try preemptively hitting R. Mika out of the charged one when you go that route.

With advantage up close, one of your strongest options is to go for a throw (advantage up close will occur most often after jump-ins, blocked jabs/charged /Lady Mika, knockdowns, and air recovery). Since Brimstone, Rainbow Typhoon, and normal throws connect with the same speed, the choice between them comes down to positioning and risk. Brimstone keeps things moving in the same direction, while Typhoon swaps sides and hurls the victim far away. Normal throws do the same things, but for less damage and with far less lengthy throw whiff animations. Normal throws can still be appealing even with R. Mika’s awesome command grabs because foes won’t be able to punish her with neutral jumps, and they won’t be looking to throw-tech against R. Mika quite like they would against, say, Rashid, where they know only a normal throw is possible. Whichever throw you go for, err toward tossing enemies toward the closest corner. When you have them cornered, go for a forward throw or Brimstone; when R. Mika is cornered, a back throw or Rainbow Typhoon will turn a bad situation into a great one. 

Reach also matters, and Rainbow Typhoon has slightly more of it, especially the EX version. Brimstone can’t reach if you tick with more than one up-close poke. On the other hand, EX Rainbow Typhoon (the game’s best command grab this side of Zangief’s LP SPD) can reach even after ticking with two crouching jabs. 

Besides grabs, going for Lady Mika from advantageous positions can also pay off. At worst, you’re left at +3 on block, retaining your advantage. On hit, the enemy gets launched into an easily jugglable position. Counter-hit is even better and is good to keep in mind for reversal punish counter-hit combos (Combo 9). It’s unlikely to hit opponents who backdash for fear of throws, but it can launch adversaries rising for neutral jumps, as they hope to bait and fall upon a whiffed command grab.

Opponents who block your ticks will naturally develop habits of trying to jump or backdash away from grab attempts. Seek to get a sense of when they might try something, and just hold down-back after a tick or two. They may go for a big reversal, which you should then obliterate with a max punish combo. If they jump, you can react with LK or EX Wingless Airplane to snag them on the way up, or wait and anti-air them with crouching . Popping them out of a jump with crouching strong gives R. Mika a chance to dash forward where they’ll land, a natural opportunity to threaten them with a meaty hit or command grab. Of course, this is also another situation where they’ll be tempted to blast off with their best invincible reversal or to hold up-back, so the cycle repeats. Rounds go south for challengers very fast when you get two or three good reads in a row, chasing them down with command grabs. The command grab march in one direction also means they’re probably in the corner by then, which is R. Mika’s favorite place.

With the corner at a foe’s back, all of R. Mika’s standard tools are amplified once they can’t backpedal, and Passion Rope Throw’s true potential is unlocked. Near a corner, switch your hit-confirm priorities toward linking into Passion Press (/). From a confirmed hit, cancel into Passion Rope Throw toward the close corner with another / input. They’ll stumble toward the wall and then ricochet off it, giving you a chance to launch them flush with the corner. Generally, the best thing to do is to launch opponents after the wall hit with charged or Lady Mika, then juggle with EX Shooting Peach to keep them cornered or Wingless Airplane to maximize damage (but give up the corner). Alternatively (and this is scarier for the victim), you can launch them off the wall hit with charged /Lady Mika, then pop them into an intentional cornered air recovery with crouching . You can make them land on any meaty setup you want or a Brimstone attempt. Against a cornered adversary, Brimstone becomes absurdly strong because its mediocre range no longer matters, and it affords you immediate follow-ups. With the corner achieved, rounds can often end quickly, like if you get the ball rolling with a wall bounce reset into a couple Brimstone throws back-to-back and the enemy finds themselves suddenly dizzy.

On defense, the armor on EX Shooting Peach makes it one of your only high-stakes defensive maneuvers. It won’t work as a real reversal against airtight/meaty offense, but you can squeeze it out against gaps of three frames or longer, like when many characters fish with a blocked light attack (leaving them at probably +2) into a medium attack (which starts up at five frames at the earliest, hence at least a three-frame gap). Unfortunately, EX Shooting Peach startup still loses if your opponent goes for a throw in these tight frame situations. EX Wingless Airplane is invulnerable during active frames but is vulnerable all through startup (as is LK Wingless, the other fastest version), so Wingless Airplane doesn’t even function as a quasi-reversal and will lose to anything on startup. Against non-airtight offense or cross-ups, though, LK/EX Wingless Airplane can save you by air-grabbing an incoming foe or at least getting R. Mika off the ground on the fourth frame, perhaps causing an awkward hit situation enemies don’t expect. But still, this is not really a reliable reversal option and simply highlights that R. Mika must sometimes rely on her three-frame jabs, V-Reversal, EX Shooting Peach, and sound blocking when pressured. With V-Gauge full, you can also pop V-Trigger when you’re feeling pressured but are not under immediate assault. The threat of Nadeshiko coming out typically forces adversaries to back off from their gameplan at least until they know where she’s coming from, giving you a window to take back momentum.

Nadeshiko!

With V-Gauge loaded, R. Mika changes the match situation as drastically as other characters like Zangief and Vega do. Like most characters, her V-Trigger can be used for exceptional hit-confirm combos (look for several examples and V-Trigger combo building blocks toward the end of the Combos section), but it also gives her huge temporary power in the neutral game. Your opponent must differentiate between three angles of attack that have two different timings each.

Knowledgeable challengers will learn to assess whether R. Mika keeps holding her arms aloft briefly after the activation freeze, which at least tells them if Nadeshiko is coming early or late. But those who just spazz out in response will inevitably get hit by Nadeshiko all the time, especially Nadeshiko (Above), which will clip foes if they try to jump around. When using the dropkick versions, Nadeshiko (Behind) is almost always better than the frontal version. It hits faster and whiffs less often since she flies out from behind the enemy, much closer to their back than to R. Mika’s side of the screen, so she has less space to cross before attacking. An exception obviously applies if you go for something like Delayed Nadeshiko (Front), then dash in and cancel blocked pokes into HK Wingless Airplane, switching sides and dragging the screen rapidly, which masks Nadeshiko’s delayed approach from what is now suddenly their side of the screen.

When you activate Nadeshiko in the neutral game, you temporarily hold all the cards. Depending on your knowledge of your opponent’s habits, you can go several ways. You can dash in (repeatedly if necessary) and take advantage of their natural hesitance with a heavy command throw; when you’re really certain that your foe will turtle up against your V-Trigger, this forsakes Nadeshiko’s potential for a virtually guaranteed grab. You can also maneuver closely and then just see if your enemy get clipped moving errantly when Nadeshiko appears; depending on distance, you can link/juggle with EX Shooting Peach, juggle with EX Wingless Airplane, or even link ground hits. This fake-aggressive approach is also warranted if your opponent has shown that they’re willing to explode out of these situations with big reversals.

Beware that it’s actually not much of a mix-up to call Nadeshiko and then dash in with your regular attack strings (e.g., standing standing ). If you make your target block some regular blockstring, suddenly they don’t really have to worry about Nadeshiko since they’ll just block her automatically if they’re already blocking R. Mika. Instead, if you want a striking counterpoint to dash-up grabs, playing wait-and-see, or running ridiculous cross-up gimmicks, you should mix in a lot of crouching standing , crouching , and uncharged standing . You actually want gaps, even big ones, since the opponent can’t really afford to punish you until Nadeshiko leaves. These moves all give your foe different looks than those typically used, and they all link into Nadeshiko (and allow you to link after) if you happen to hit slightly before her attack. When the opponent blocks Nadeshiko herself, you have an opening to pressure them (depending on position) with an immediate dash-in grab, a meaty attack, or a jump-in/cross-up mix-up.