GBVS/Metera/Strategy

General Tactics

Generally, stay afar from your opponent and use all of your arrow moves to suppress the opponent from advancing. A f.H max range is your nice reference.

For Metera is possibly the longest range zoner, other characters have to be close enough to get advantage, so they will always attempt to go around your arrows to shorten the range with a jump, a 6G cross-over, a 4G evade or a advancing move like Katalina's Enchanted Lands. Be predictive and quick-reactive to those moves. Because these actions each has its own weakness:

Jumps can be suppressed with a 1/2H, and a hard read The Great Fall sets the opponent back to ground with some nice damage. Your opponent do jumps to avoid arrows vertically at mid-range repeatedly, usually means that they are trying to hold the situation for further observing, which you can counter with a (jump/5U) > 5U > j.M air-to-air.

For those rely heavily on 6G cross-overs, use your long range ground melee moves (f.M, 2M, 2U and f.L) to suppress or even punish them. It is possible to do 2U on visual reaction to surely knock your opponent down, which will make them think twice.

4G evade is probably the best way to counter Metera's zoning game for the reason that it kind of messes up your feeling of your cool-downs when your Starry Sky misses, and it is relatively safer than a 6G for its fully strike invul. attribute, less visual sign, safer distance and faster recovery (4G:4F vs 6G:8F). Doing visual 2U punish is still possible but very risky. The good news is, they are still afar from you, so try to maintain your sense of rhythm and change your zoning move-sets unpredictably.

If your opponent attempts some advancing attacks on you, simply continue firing arrows should stop them well. If they advance when you are airborne however, they are assuming you are to fire a 236M Starry Sky, use 4/5U to escape or use 236L instead to counter them. A 236H can also be used with a hard read to gain you some big damage and corner carry.

Unfortunately sometimes you are threaten by heavy pressure situations, which is really dangerous for Metera because she has no way to DP out without full meter. You should be very cautious in pressure because Metera's mediocre (sometimes worse) melee normals.

Be practiced with all your basic skills against pressure, including high/low, strike/throw mix-ups, frame-traps (and anything you may be faced with). Being well-equipped with character knowledge is also essential. Seeing you continuously succeed in defending against mix-ups, a wise opponent naturally reduces their strength of pressure to remain safe, or even abandon on pressuring.

When defending, keep an eye on the opponent's move-set (when being pressured, blockstrings). Remember that anyone practices move-sets and use in games rather than using moves separately totally relying on reaction, for the latter way consumes energy too much (higher level players have a lot of move-sets to choose from, which can look like the latter one however). Blockstrings always have breaches when connecting to each other, may be a punishable gap, a jump-in which can be anti-aired or other. That's why a wise opponent abandon on pressuring above and where you get out of pressure.

Make full use of just-guard system. Every just-guard increases you SBA gauge by 1%, together with some throw-breaks, Metera will gain a full meter sooner to do Dense Caress or to just scare the opponent away.

Try to gain some big HP advantage when have a corner combo confirmed, but prevent over-throwing your H-ver. abilities, because your zoning game relies on them a lot. To get a knock down, the low-ver. Starry Sky is better for the high-ver. can be used airborne. Different ver. of The Great Fall does exactly the same damage, so use L/M-ver. instead, actually they can be as nice combo tools as H-ver.

When fall behind, be patient for a chance instead of 5U > j.M attacking all the time. 5U is a strong offensive tool, but leave you open to huge anti-air counterhit punishment, especially when everyone knows you are to attack for the game. Mix your jump-ins with air Starry Skies kind of covers you.

Blockstrings

Up Close

If you have to be up close, your go-to normals are c.M and f.L, because they're her only plus on block normals. c.M is +2, which is a problem against characters with 5f c.L normals because they will beat you even if you use c.L after c.M. f.L is better, but it has relatively short range. Your main goal up close should be to push the opponent out into at least f.M range, where you can start to use your fireballs. If you're midscreen, you can back off with 4U and start zoning.

Neutral

f.H

While Metera's fireballs are good on their own, they are complemented by this move. You can use it in a similar fashion to how Gran uses 236M: getting an extra fireball hit to turn the tides in your favor. Make them block it, cancel it, push them out farther.

Zephyr

Metera's Unique Action particularly shines here. After she uses f.H or any fireball, you have the option to shoot right in with an overhead of your choosing. It's great for catching your opponent off-guard, but you can get anti-aired if you aren't careful. To make things harder for your opponent you can use Air Starry Sky to throw off their timing at the expense of an overhead, but that's a trade that is still definitely in your favor.

Starry Sky

Using Starry Sky is the main facet of your gameplan. Shoot High fireballs to make them crouch and shoot low fireballs to keep them there. Shoot air fireballs at them when you're approaching or backing off in the air to keep them on their toes.

The Great Fall

This move starts to become useful when you have your opponent blocking. It's very significantly plus on block, which helps you set up even more zoning and possibly and Aetherial seal.

Aetherial Seal

This move and The Great Fall serve a similar purpose: keep your opponent blocking. The best place to use this is after a blocked fireball because your opponent is stuck in place. This will probably make them want to jump, so keep an eye out for that.

Okizeme

Off of a hard knockdown you have two main choices: summoning a butterfly with Aetherial Seal or using The Great Fall. The differences come down to what you're setting up after, and also sometimes the matchup you're fighting.

Aetherial Seal

If you're in the corner, it's really easy to set up a Universal Overhead combo with 22H. You can also detonate a butterfly with f.H to cover a Zephyr mixup. If you get a far knockdown in neutral midscreen, that's also an excellent place to set up a butterfly.

The Great Fall

If there's some space between you and the opponent in the corner, you can use The Great Fall to set up a safe Zyphyr mixup. It's not as good as a butterfly, but it's good if you have to worry about cooldowns.

Matchup Information

General Information

Matchup Chart

Ferry	?:?	I feel like j236M works well in this matchup, given the duration of Ferry’s normals. She can reaction punish spot dodge with 2M, and that’s a free confirm into her 236H. Try to play more patiently, however, depending on the Ferry they may not be able to. Get hoppy after blocking normals. If you can bait out her 236H you’re golden. Jump immediately after you block her normals with j236M (She can’t catch jumps without 236H, and she has to do it on prediction). If she starts to commit to 236H she’s going to be in trouble when you don’t jump.
Gran	?:?	Prediction Spot Dodge is almost mandatory to steal away frame advantage from this lord. Make sure you know what buttons he can’t 214X through. Don’t let him touch you with the plus one. His j.U is super scary, it can be rough to try and anti-air him if you’re recovering from a whiffed j.M if he’s landing a lot of jump ins, try to play patiently, and perhaps keep your super in reserve to anti-air.
Lancelot	?:?	Safejump into buffered forward dash as an option select shuts down his wakeup 22H midscreen. He’s got great tools in this matchup if you don’t put things in his way. Take the initiative if you find you’ve shut down his attempts to bully his way in with H moves.
Percival	?:?	Dash Spot Dodge against his strings into Fireball seems good. Forces him to riskier options.
Katalina	?:?	Challenge 2M by shimmying out of 2M range and pressing your far.M, or challenging her with 214M. Prediction Dodge/Roll can net you a big payday in this matchup, alongside Hop jC. Be careful, however, she has more than enough tools to punish you for gutsy reads.
Metera	5:5	Shoot them fireballs boi
Ladiva	?:?	Ladiva roll is notoriously weak to reaction punishes. I believe you can get much more than just 2M but I need to check. Spot dodge is your major worry. Be ready to anti-air.
Charlotta	?:?	A backdash read against her H Flash Kick on wakeup means 50% for you, so perhaps consider it. You can also option-select roll in your safejump to net a nice punish, but I believe that’s midscreen only. c.H makes for a decent high-reward anti-air against her j.L and Potato Flip shenanigans.
Zeta	?:?	Instant j236M is your friend, I believe. I hear airthrow is great in this matchup.
Vaseraga	?:?	far.H gives you a reaction 236H or 214H cancel in neutral against his armor. Do not commit your shots to anything else. Be aware of armor when he has it and confirm your H Shots. He’ll hate you.
Lowain	?:?	Practice Spot Dodging Yggy. Learn to Spot Dodge Cancel when you activate counter. It’s okay to just jockey for space and play patiently. If he burns his cooldowns on H moves in neutral, just try to chill, the resulting gamestate favours you dramatically.
Beelzebub	?:?
Narmaya	?:?
Djeeta	?:?
Soriz	?:?
Zooey	?:?
Belial	?:?