Mira vs Gargos

Hello everyone! First post here I hope it’s not in the wrong section. So i recently started playing KI and i must say i’m loving it. So my problem with Gargos is this. I don’t know if I’m delusional but isn’t Gargos’s mobility a bit too
much? I used to think of him as a more beefy Glacius but his mobility
along with his long range combos feels too much for me. I have to use
mist to get away from his punches/approach, if i try to aerial dash to
him his range is far superior, if i try to use bats he immediately not
only punishes but gets a full combo as well.Are there any suggestions?
Am i doing something wrong? :confused:

As a starting point I would say you definitely want to stand at “footsie” range. Don’t send bats full screen for sure, and don’t just air dash in or try to play air to air with him too much from long distance.

You want to be Mira’s medium punch distance away from gargos. His options at that range are really limited and Mira can just threaten with medium punch and kick while gargos has to commit to something he doesn’t really want to commit to from there. You also can get light bats off from that range much more effectively and not just be hit with his portal punch

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Got it, i’ll try that out, thank you for your response :slight_smile:

Don’t jump or air dash or throw bats at full screen. Just approach slowly, walking, any blocked portal punch gives you an opening for a ground dash. One/two dashes and you’ll be in range where you can threaten with air dash j.MP or dash in s.MP/s.HK.

As mentioned above, at mid distance the control is all yours. Mostly anything he does, you can punish or use to gain momentum because he’ll be negative. If he doesn’t know this, just block and take advantage. If he does know this, he’ll either get defensive or start jumping. If he gets defensive, it’s your cue to move in, s.MP > light bats, s.MP > HK trephine should be your tools of choice for this. If he jumps, try and snipe him out of the air ASAP with MK embrace (even if you don’t have any silver life to regain, what you want is the knockdown to gain momentum and pressure him) and you’ll have a Meaty s.MP/s.HP afterwards.

On his wake up don’t go for 4HP as a Meaty, because that’s the only option that actually let’s him get away with his heavy torpedo as a reversal. Use s.HP or s.HK for optimal effects, or s.MP if you want longer active frames or better startup. If he does heavy torpedo, just wait for him to drop from the portal, block and punish for free.

If he commits to instinct, s.HK is your best friend as it has amazing reach and will blow through his armor. A good gargos won’t commit unless you’re already on top of him, though, but keep it in mind.

One last heads up to the usefulness of heavy bats in matchups where the opponent likes to jump around a lot. They cost a bit of health, and you need to protect yourself before throwing them out (cancel from a long range s.MP for example, and don’t spam) as they come out slow, but once out, just sit back and let them do the work. They’ll go after them, pester them until they give up and block on the ground and you can use that time to dash in and pressure, or they get hit mid air and give you free oki pressure on their wakeup.

Hope this helps! I’ve found the matchup to be tricky because of lack of knowledge, but it doesn’t seem to be a hard matchup for Mira once you learn it.

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Just fought a high ranked Gargos. One of the safest ways he can activate instinct is to wake up with heavy Reckoning and instinct cancel once he hits you on hit or block. BUT. With Mira and a well timed mist you can actually mist past the Reckoning and hit him while he is still recovering. Not the hardest thing to time but it looks so cool when you punish it.

Here is the fight