I don't want to pour cold water ... but whenever I see my opponent start with this kind of characters in his deck, no matter with whatever combination ... I would tell myself, another easy game to pass through. Ralf do have it's use in early game with some combination, but they are surely many other cheaper AP combination which give hell of an advantage. I am not going to reveal anything ... but if you don't precious your medals, go get your Leona
Metal Slug Defense (by SNK Playmore) The issue with Ralf and Leona is that they're "nail in the coffin" units. If you're already winning, they're absolutely terrifying and remove any chance of a comeback from your opponent. If you're *not* winning, though, they're not going to help you win. Leona has lightning-fast movement speed, can clear incoming attacks with her special, and pulverizes things up close, but she's still a fragile human unit. The moment she attempts to cross the front lines, she instantly dies to the hail of bullets. She has uses in hyper-rush decks when you're only stacking one or two AP and you're counting on yourself having an early unit advantage, and you need to clear walls like Sandbag or Big Snail very quickly to ensure your opponent won't be able to stall through your rush, but even then, she's situational and I'd prefer another long-ranged machine gun unit. Ralf is way more useable, usually, since he has a fairly powerful standard attack. But in some 30-or-so matches I tried with him, he has the same problems as Leona: if you try to pull off his Rush Punch special to try and get him into Vulcan Jabs range, he gets interrupted mid-rush as he tries to cross the bullet storm! Since his Special is unreliable, he is pretty much outclassed by Clark (and Trevor). Their shared weakness is that they require support and more micro than this game allows. They *must* be covered by an Ohumein-Conga or Giant Caterpillar to be effective, and you don't have enough fine control over your units to ensure that Giant Caterpillar's Special always activates before Ralf's, or that Leona doesn't cross the front lines until it's covered. Otherwise, they're just more humans that die instantly to a MSA. It's not good to have too many of those. Between Karn and one of the giant crabs, I'd recommend Ohumein-Conga. It makes a good wall, its rushing Special is almost as strong as the Caterpillar's, it can't be pushed back, which preserves your front line (really important for late game), and it's melee attack is strong enough to permanently stun lock those J.Kings. Giant Caterpillar is better than both of them, though. However, if you already have Giant Caterpillar, it becomes a tossup. Need another non-pushable wall to alternate with the Caterpillar? Take Ohumein. Need a front-line generally tough ranged attacking unit? Karn is a good choice. EDIT: Between the crabs, Brown has the most HP and stands close to the front of the pack. He makes the best wall of the bunch, but he often dies during his Special because he's already taken a lot of damage. For general meat shielding, he's the best choice. Green is also very good. He has slightly less HP than Brown, but a faster production rate. He's long-ranged, so he tends to hide behind the front line. He gets his Special out more consistently since he doesn't usually take much damage beforehand, but he doesn't penetrate as deeply into the opponent's formation as Brown. He's much more reliable as an anti-MSA unit than Brown. No one uses Red, but... He's fast? That might be useful in a rush deck. Maybe. EDIT-EDIT: I like the Ring Laser Mecha, but I had to drop him from my deck. He's almost as sturdy as the Drill Slug and has a huge piercing attack. But he definitely has a long wind up animation, and gets stunned too easily. He's good paired with a Big Snail. He's bad otherwise.
Yup, you'll have to complete the normal areas to unlock units in the shop and I can't remember which area for shoe and karn too! I think the pattern of the new units unlocking in shop is when you encounter those new units (shoe and karn) first used by the A.I. in that area, completing that area should unlock those units.
Metal Slug Defense (by SNK Playmore) I have to agree with Spiel, here. Although Trevor and J.King have been nerfed, AP stacking decks are still the most powerful. They function differently, though. Since Trevor can't wall on his own, anymore (even the SamTanks can hit him, now), he's more of a damage output unit, and some decks are starting to drop him completely. I'm seeing more Big Snail and SV-001 units in the early game, but the goal is still to get an early AP lead and enough of a territory buffer so that an early J.King can pop out and reap havoc. J.King spawns aren't free, anymore, but they're still dominant units. Hey, I got a compliment! Props to you, too, Spiel. It's too bad we can't play each other. I have to admit that, although I don't mind losses and try to learn from them, my goal is to construct an invincible deck that has answers to everything. I want to improve my opening game. I use Big Snail, Trevor, and SV-001 Type-R in the early game, but I haven't found an optimal opening, yet. It's mostly deploying Ohumein Conga, Giant Caterpillar, and Elephant Slug to press territory for a J.King rush. The issue is that I rarely meet players who have good units, and the ones who do have good units refuse rematches, so I haven't found an opportunity to exhaustively test openings. I even still carry SamTanks on my team. Does anyone want to share their openings? My most common one is: A. 2 AP B. Big Snail, maybe Trevor C. 3 AP D. Trevor and/or Type-R E. 4 AP F. Trevor, Big Snail, Giant Caterpillar G. Either start rushing or start stacking AP. Sorry to everyone for all the walls of text.
ok.. im gonna share mine too deck: snail fatfio iron iso sam tank claw tank caterpillar elephant morden jk nokana mk2 A.2 ap stack..sometimes 3 or 4 depending on the length of the arena or until emeny moves first B. raise ap til i got 150, then snail, to be followed up closely by sam tank(just enough distance for the two so they can hit enemy simutaniously)and not to close to be hit with a spread attack C. while they walk forward to be followed by iron iso, and predict where will the battle take place.followed by fat fio for aoe ______________________ extra:if i notice enemy clustered release MSA,if not..ill wait till enemy unit clusteres ______________________ D. ap, release unit, then ap again.. just the usual.. usuals ....this deck got beat by clark+caterpillar combo stacking early(3loss 1win) . . from point C onwards(too much aoe is bad news for me)
Metal Slug Defense (by SNK Playmore) @Joseph1234: Thanks for sharing! I feel like one of the most important points of the match is the first MSA. Whoever takes less damage from the first MSA trade has a huge advantage. Ways to mitigate MSA: - Sasquatch / Abul Abbas: just release one at the right time and hope your opponent doesn't notice. - Big Snail: similar to the above, but you can use its special to take no damage. - Ohumein-Conga / Giant Caterpillar: when you hear the beep of a MSA, activate their special to soak up the whole thing and save your team. - Trevor: any Trevors you might have can jump backwards out of danger. I'm sure you've all seen this. - Do nothing: play passively and stack AP when the first MSA comes along. Afterwards, pump out your reserved units as you launch your own MSA for a big tempo change. Clark is definitely a popular unit. I often see openings of SamTanks / Big Snail / Trevor / Clark, but I feel like it's a bit too committed and risks getting overturned at the first MSA.
Its like on a contest.. The first MSA is like 40% or something definite counters are what you suggested, and the fast melee high hp type units.. the clark caterpillar setup that beat my deck consists like this: area(medium to wide)the one time i beat him is on a smaller area... snail first, then he does not follow up..after i beat his snail, he releases snail again... its like he's baiting me or something.. then boom(clark+sam tank+caterpillar followed by MSA) when I try to fight back the snails and caterpilar tanks his clark+units until he stacks them up.my theory is like ive spend a total of 700ap+ units that he countered with probably just 500ap or less And he has advantage in uping his Ap he's betting on the spread aoe of his units to destroy or soften up my units and the left overs are easy pickings... He has a stall tactic that can be also effective at early game,
Ah, I've seen the snail opening a few times. It's important to realize that players who just launch snails are trying to stall for time for a larger offensive, and they want you to commit lots of AP to killing the snails while they stack AP. You either have to all-out rush them, which doesn't work so well in larger levels, or call them out on their bet and stack AP first, launching enough units to force them to stop stacking AP.
thats my first time ive encountered that deck, he beat me 2 games easily(I tried my usual starter and a few adjustments at the second to no avail..I still tried to rematch him because I was curious,to study that setup... the 3rd match is where I bothered him,but I still lost(this time he just outlasted me)(i copied his strategy but iron iso and fat fio are fragile late game)...the 4th is where I finally broke his strategy....and luck on my side, Youre right..full offense early helps (to disturb his rythm)and careful setups(iron iso).. he got totally decimated, I still tried to rematch him to cement my new counter offensive against him(if it still works 100% on a different area) but he quit ..
Metal Slug Defense (by SNK Playmore) Yeah, it's upsetting how touchy players are about their win records, I can never get sets with people because of that nonsense. Are you Android or iOS? Maybe we can play. My setup's a little different from his, though. I stall with Snails and then launch SamTank / Trevor / SV-001 Ex instead of SamTank / Clark / Caterpillar. I want to stick Clark in there, somewhere, but I don't know what unit to remove... Oh, an addendum to our earlier discussion on MSA: I lately started delaying my MSA attack until my Giant Caterpillar special is ready, and activating them together. A Giant Caterpillar tackle followed by an MSA is just magical! So much of the PVP meta is just learning not to mash the MSA button.
Im a android user (4.3) , my device is a galaxy note 2(with that pen thingy..it helps quite a lot honestly for pin point accuracy... about the msa.. yeah.. I noticed it too..some players mash it if its available, im quite picky about my MSA..sometimes I only use it once or twice...depending on the situation
Darn, I'm on iPhone. Oh well. I notice that many strong players have Di-Cokka in their decks. The most common deck I encounter goes something like: Samurai Tanks / Big Snail Trevor Spacey / Clark Still Di-Cokka SV-001 / Ex / T-R / Metal Claw Giant Caterpillar Elephant Slug Karn Iron Nokana / mk.II Jupiter King Donald Morden So like... Is Di-Cokka good? I see it a LOT, but I'm reluctant to believe that it's amazing enough to bump out the old deck mainstays of Allen O'Niel and Mars Mecha.
oh thats too bad ... I tried to upload my screen shot a while ago so everyone can see my metal slug profile(with so-so record ) but im having problems..im using my phone to browse forum arcade and it needs an http link... im gonna try my fb upload though so lets see what happens
di cokka is essential to hyper rush decks... I know cause i used it too.. its cheap.. affordable... strong single long attack/ special..fast respawn... its the manifestation of rush itself..only downside isfragile and kinda slow
Hmm... No, I get a broken link. It's odd, I can just post images directly (although I browse forums through Tapatalk).
finally,im not familiar with these type of things so apologies... the di cokka unit is all about fire power in exchange for durability...like a mini shoe/karn
Oh hey, I can see your pic, now. Maybe it was just my connection. So I encountered the most frustrating opening I've ever faced. It's just Big Snail, then SV-001 Experimental, again and again. It's freaking impossible to get through in any reasonable amount of time, and MSA gets wasted because of how far back the SV-001 sits from the snails. My opponent then uses the AP advantage gained to make a token attempt at fighting back while secretly stacking some 2000-3000 AP, and drops all his heavies at once. I lost 0:5 to this, even on small levels (with some variation), until a "20% battery" warning cut me off, of all things.
Dropping my rating because I'm getting tired of full-screen add popups while I'm IN-GAME. One just popped up while I was tapping on units, probably so I'd accidentally tap on the ad...
no man.. it not your connection,Theres a mispelI in the link i gave.. the 2nd attempt I uploaded my pic but its huge(its outside the boarderlines (1mb,)) so i scaled it down.. then the 3rd times the charm... too bad about the snail+sv 001exp.. I too encountered that kind of setup but not the stall kind, whats annoying too is that fake sound that sv 001 makes when it explodes..mimicing a MSA attack... it makes my snail timing way off...I cant recommend a direct counter for it thougth( i have to actually experience that first) my suggestion is that you too should try that deck(if you have sv001 exp) and find opening by actually using it.. oh by the way.. I recomend iron iso, i almost forgot about him, hes my anti stall budy vs snails if you dont mind
