1. I’m attacking, so why am I the one losing?
With Pyra/Mythra, one simple idea works against many characters: use Mythra’s speed and touch them first.
They move. Fine. I’m faster. Forward air, neutral air, forward tilt, dash in.
Against ordinary opponents, that often works.
Then Kazuya appears. You put out a hitbox. Kazuya advances. Somehow the sword goes through him. A moment later, Electric Wind God Fist has booked you a one-way ticket into a long combo.
Then King K. Rool appears. This time your attack definitely connects.
Crocodile: “Belly.”
He tanks it. His move keeps going. You get hit instead.
“So I’ll shield.”
Grabbed.
The whole experience becomes:
Kazuya → slips through attacks with intangibility
K. Rool → tanks attacks with armor
Grabs → beat shield
You → feel like every button loses
This is not just “I hate heavyweights.” The deeper problem is a habit: trying to stop every opposing action by attacking into it.
2. The core answer: Mythra’s speed was being used backwards
Mythra’s speed is not only for hitting first.
Against Kazuya and K. Rool, it is often stronger to use it like this:
approach → do nothing → make them swing → retreat → punish the whiff
instead of:
approach → attack immediately
If Mythra’s mobility is treated as a first-strike machine, intangibility and armor can turn that strength against you.
If it is treated as a whiff-manufacturing machine, the matchup makes much more sense.
You are not fast only because you can attack sooner.
You are fast enough to threaten an attack, leave, and still come back in time to punish.
3. Kazuya: the man who approaches while parts of him stop being hittable
Crouch Dash breaks “I saw him move, so I’ll hit him”
Kazuya’s Crouch Dash has intangibility. Technically, that is more precise than simply calling it invincibility.
According to frame data, his upper body is intangible on frames 1–12, with full-body intangibility on frames 2–4.
So Mythra can see Kazuya advance and think: “He’s coming in. I’ll stuff him with forward air.”
The sword may arrive exactly when the relevant part of Kazuya cannot be hit. Then Electric Wind God Fist can follow.
Against many characters, intercepting an approach with a move is sensible. Kazuya’s exam quietly adds a footnote:
Note: the person you are trying to hit may briefly not be available.
Do not challenge every Crouch Dash directly. Stand just outside Kazuya’s preferred range, shift position first, then punish the end of the movement or the attack that follows.
Mythra is extremely good at coming back after retreating.
The “back-throw-looking thing” is also awful near ledge
Kazuya has the command grab Gates of Hell.
It deals 24% total and launches the opponent behind Kazuya at a low angle. That is especially dangerous for characters whose recovery is not their greatest strength.
If Kazuya has his back to the ledge and you stand in grab range, the situation starts to resemble voluntarily entering a customer-service desk whose only product is death.
Do not plant yourself in shield directly in front of him at ledge. Kazuya has normal grabs too.
This matchup is not a game where “shield = safe.”
4. King K. Rool: the crocodile who eats your attack and then hits you
Belly armor is not always active, but it is active on exactly the moves you hate
King K. Rool is not permanently armored. Belly Super Armor protects the belly during defined windows of specific moves.
| Move | Belly armor |
|---|---|
| Forward tilt | Frames 5–11 |
| Dash attack | Frames 7–28 |
| Up smash | Frames 6–19 |
| Down smash | Frames 8–21 |
| Neutral air | Frames 6–30 |
| Up air | Frames 7–20 |
| Down air | Frames 14–25 |
Neutral air and dash attack are particularly annoying.
If Mythra reacts with “a move is coming, I’ll hit him first,” the sequence can become: sword hits belly, crocodile tanks it, crocodile’s attack remains active, only Mythra gets launched.
The attacker loses the lawsuit.
You do not need to clash with every neutral air or dash attack. Evade it, wait for it to end, and punish afterward.
K. Rool’s dash attack has 60 total frames. If you make it miss, there really is a window labeled “please hit crocodile now.”
Crownerang has a different kind of armor
K. Rool’s side special, Crownerang, has damage-based armor separate from Belly Super Armor.
During frames 6–63 of the throw, it has a 12% base-damage armor threshold, effectively 14.4% under 1v1 damage scaling as documented by the sources.
So this can happen:
“I didn’t even hit his belly. Why did he tank that?”
Because this time it was not his belly.
It was apparently royal commitment to throwing headwear.
Mechanically, it is a separate armor system.
Against K. Rool, where you hit matters, but when you hit matters just as much.
5. “Then I’ll shield” — and now you are grabbed
If attacking into them loses, shielding seems obvious.
Fighting games have already anticipated that argument: grabs beat shield.
Kazuya has regular grabs and Gates of Hell. K. Rool can also turn grabs into profitable positional situations.
So:
- Attack immediately → lose to intangibility or armor
- Hold shield → lose to grab
- Stay in place → continue accepting the opponent’s mix-up
There is a fourth option:
Do not be standing there.
Mythra is excellent at this.
You do not have to defend everything with shield or interrupt everything with an attack. Dash away, walk out, jump, change your landing point.
Sometimes the strongest defensive button is called distance.
6. The Pyra/Mythra answer: add “do nothing” to the move list
Mythra becomes a whiff generator, not merely a rushdown character
Against Kazuya and K. Rool, use more of these:
- Dash in, then retreat without attacking
- Short hop and land without throwing an aerial
- Do not automatically attack at the startup of their move
- Hover just outside range and touch them only after a whiff
- Once they are airborne, use mobility to juggle and trap landings
The key realization is that a feint does not require an attack button.
Mythra dashes toward someone. They expect the hit. Mythra does nothing. They swing. They miss. Mythra comes back and punishes.
Mythra’s speed is not merely “speed that lets me press more buttons.”
It is also speed that makes the opponent press a button first and still lets me return in time.
Use Pyra for kills and advantage
Camping in Pyra against Kazuya in neutral can be dangerous because the speed difference matters.
A cleaner role split is: Mythra earns the hit, launches the opponent, pushes them toward ledge, and establishes advantage. Pyra cashes out with range and power when the opponent is in kill percent or trapped at ledge.
Mythra creates the invoice.
Pyra sends it to collections.
7. Online makes the entire problem worse
Smash Ultimate is documented as using delay-based netcode. Inputs have to be communicated between systems, so practical reaction windows can shrink and worse connections can cause stutter.
Ultimate also has a 9-frame universal input buffer.
That combination produces the classic internal monologue:
“I SHIELDED.”
“I DASHED.”
“I PRESSED THE MOVE.”
“IT HAPPENED IN MY SOUL.”
Online does not always feel like one perfectly fixed amount of extra delay. Network conditions can change, and the buffer can queue an earlier action around the end of another animation.
So an offline sequence like:
see move → retreat by a tiny amount → make it miss → instant punish
is less reproducible online.
The practical adaptation is to stand farther out.
Do not rely on reacting at the final possible moment. Begin from spacing where the dangerous option does not reach you in the first place.
Then a few ugly frames do not own your entire evening.
8. If CPU matches feel better, that can be a rational choice
If online play feels bad, treating CPU matches as the main mode is perfectly coherent.
A CPU does not reproduce human adaptation perfectly. Habit reads, deliberate repetition, layered feints, and human mind games are different.
So:
beating CPUs ≠ automatically being equally strong against humans
But if the goal is to move the character cleanly, practice combos and landing traps, stop swinging into Kazuya’s approach, learn to disengage from K. Rool’s armored moves, and avoid getting angry because inputs feel late, CPU matches are a useful environment.
You bought a fighting game, not a mandatory internship in network engineering.
9. Match notes you can actually remember
Against Kazuya
- Do not automatically attack when you see Crouch Dash.
- Do not live inside Electric Wind God Fist range.
- When he approaches, reposition before trying to hit.
- Near ledge, do not freeze in shield directly in front of him.
- Confirm the whiff, then use Mythra’s speed to return.
Against K. Rool
- Do not collide directly with neutral air.
- Do not challenge dash attack head-on.
- Do not assume a small hit will always interrupt Crownerang startup.
- Evade the big move, then punish its recovery.
- Once he is airborne, exploit the large body with juggles and landing traps.
Shared rule
When the opponent starts a move, do not automatically press attack.
“Do nothing” is not passive. It is waiting until their special defensive mechanic expires, then billing them for the mistake.
10. Conclusion: stop colliding; make them whiff
Against many characters, Mythra’s speed rewards this:
opponent acts → my faster attack shuts it down
But then:
Kazuya → becomes intangible K. Rool → tanks with armor Grab → beats shield
and the normal answer sheet catches fire.
The solution is not necessarily a new combo or superhuman execution.
Move away. Do nothing. Make them swing. Make them miss. Hit them after the mechanic is gone.
Mythra is fast enough to make that plan work.
And if online makes even that timing feel inconsistent, play the CPU and enjoy the game.
This is not a certification exam for suffering.
Before getting angry at Kazuya’s intangibility or the crocodile’s stomach, wait until the nonsense ends — then hit them.
