Welcome to the matchups page for May. This is a somewhat in-depth description of the important points to know when fighting each character. There are pointers on playing neutral, offence and defence as well as descriptions of important moves that the opponent has and will use.

You will need to know a few things before you can understand the information provided.

Mental strain

This is a measure of how exhausting it can be to play the matchup. If a set goes on for an extended time or you have played a lot already this can mean that the matchup gets a lot harder as you run out of juice.

Matchup difficulty

There is not a lot of difference between Easy and Hard. Just a small amount in either direction will push you into these categories and it is simply indicative of which side of average they fall on. The Hard classification might just require more knowledge or be more taxing than your usual matchup but they are still very winnable. The extremes of Very Easy and Very Hard are those matchups which require a lot of knowledge, play outside of the usual, strong execution and can hinge on your ability to make more correct than incorrect decisions under pressure.

May does not have any matchups which are so difficult that a counterpick is recommended. Everything is winnable, at every level.

A.B.A

A.B.A

Overview

A.B.A is three increasingly difficult matchups in one character. Her normal mode is greatly downplayed in terms of strength. She has ridiculous hitboxes at the expense of very poor mobility and it is the latter which makes this manageable for May. Once she shifts into Moroha mode though, this is where the real pain starts. Moroha is easily one of May's hardest matchups, which is before she even shifts into the souped up version of it in the form of Goku Moroha. Moroha and Goku Moroha can easily steal games away at the drop of a hat regardless of everything that has happened up to that point.

A.B.A is very hard to combo, takes low damage and is extremely difficult to stun. These all work in her favour in this matchup especially. Having little damage and weaker knockdowns will give A.B.A many more chances to get into Moroha and potentially rob the round from under you.

A.B.A's Moroha gauge drains by 1/3 for each time A.B.A is knocked down. However, it can be very hard to secure a knockdown if you are not ready for it. This is owing to A.B.A's reeling animation making strings like 2P 2P 2D not combo. It is important to know when to route into 5K 3K instead just to secure the knockdown. A.B.A's slow wakeup means that a 3K knockdown does provide stronger oki than against the rest of the cast.

Instant kills are a legitimate option in this matchup against Suka Motion. Especially if you can land an Overhead Kiss, simply allow her to hit the ground next to you whilst you are activating.

Combo difficulty: Extreme

Mental strain: Taxing

Matchup difficulty: Very hard

Recommended style: sticky vs normal mode and evasive vs installs

Goals

This is really split into different goals against each of the three modes. Risk vs. reward against A.B.A is greatly skewed in her favour once in Moroha and Goku Moroha because of how hard it is to reliably combo her into damage. You must adjust accordingly.

Play safely but not passively.
The keys to success in this matchup are movement, defence and unpredictability in positioning.
Vs. Moroha mode you must play in a less committal fashion. All of her Moroha normals are better than yours so your placement and use must be better than your opponent's.
Do not play into Danzai.
Take the above two points even more seriously vs. Goku Moroha mode.
Mash out of rekka stagger as best you can.

Neutral

Normal mode

Against normal mode, play at a range that does not allow A.B.A a free blood pack but also keeps you safe from keygrab. This is the single most important part of the normal mode matchup.

If the A.B.A player does try to install then make them pay with at least one knockdown to reduce the potential output she has. Raw dolphins are typically a bad idea here as her 5p has head invulnerability as well as many of her other buttons just beating or easily punishing them. You must establish unpredictability with force breaks and FRCs if you want to use dolphins in this way.

Make every hit vs. normal mode A.B.A count by maximising damage as best you can. It will all come to be very important once she enters Moroha mode and everything she does starts to cost her HP.

Moroha mode

This is very hard. A.B.A's buttons are better than yours. In every interaction she has the upper hand, but must do the correct thing. Your aims here are

defend well so that she is draining HP and Moroha gauge but getting little return for it outside of your gaurd gauge going up
make good use of your mobility and non-linear movement options so throw her off and make her miss something that you can punish
punish any bad Danzai's with a knockdown
prevent her from using a bloodpack to regain health
do not try to reaction anti-air j.H with anything but slashback, you just can't

Goku Moroha mode

Moroha mode was bad, but just A.B.A being in Goku Moroha mode can make you almost completely shut down. The aim's here are the same as Moroha mode, except A.B.A is now even stronger and can murder you from a normal throw if your guard gauge is flashing. There are a few things that can help out here by reducing the amount of time the A.B.A player gets in this mode.

If the A.B.A player does the Goku Moroha install and is anywhere on screen without putting you in blockstun you can punish it with Yamada
If the A.B.A player does anything which puts you into blockstun and cancels that into the Goku Moroha install, you can dead angle during the flash and it will hit her (but this is hard to get right)

If you are not close to A.B.A then its possible to spend some time in the air, stalling your fall with j2H FDC and j.D FDC, get away from her with j.623S FRC and generally just not being where she things you will be. Play for time, force her to reduce her health and try to fuzzy jump out of her throw attempts. Praying to whichever God you believe in might also help.

Anti-airs

Against normal mode A.B.A this can play out as normal. 6P, 6H and the rest of your standard AA toolkit all applies. You still have to be careful because her buttons are absolutely ridiculous in terms of hitboxes but it is manageable. Once she shifts though, you can no longer reliably anti-air her. Pre-emptive dolphins are the only thing which outright beats j.H in either install and this can be a big risk. The only good anti-air against her installs is slashback. This is extremely difficult to get right because of variable timing, height etc. so avoidance rather than beating is recommended.

Offence

Structuring offence

Instant kill setups

Defence

Important moves

Dealing with Danzai

There are a few scenarios in which you will have to deal with this move and what you do depends on whether you have blocked it or made it whiff. Important points about this move to note are

A.B.A does not have this armoured move in normal mode
Goku Moroha's Danzai is faster and with a smaller gap in between the hits
H Danzai has only on point of armour
Force break Danzai has infinite super armour

If you block the first hit of Danzai then:

backdash the second hit and then punish with 3K
instant block or slashback the second hit and punish with 3K if you aren't at max danzai range
you can interrupt between the first and second hit using any of your supers, although Yamada will trade in your favour and both of you will be knocked down
DAA can beat the second hit if you just want to push A.B.A off of you

If Danzai whiffs then it can actually be quite a bit harder to punish because it doesn't give you the set timing to answer it. You can still 3K here but be careful not to trade.

Dealing with rekkas

A.B.A's rekka chain can form a natural frametrap. If you do not know whether the A.B.A player will do any of the follow ups then do not interrupt. It is better to miss a punish on rekka 2 than it is to eat a rekka 3 and allow her to bloodpack. If you do know that they will stop after any of the rekkas then all of them are punishable on block, but only if you are close enough on the first two.

Punishes:

Rekka 1 - 2P (2F) and 5P (just frame) are your only options here with OHK no longer being 4F startup. This change from AC+ has made this matchup even harder before you consider A.B.A got buffed. It is not really advised to press here.
Rekka 2 - 2D (2F) and 3K (just frame) are additional options here but again it is completely range dependent as to whether they will work
Rekka 3 - finally one that you can punish if they aren't in Goku Moroha. 5K 3K here to secure a knockdown against normal mode and Moroha mode, 2D is your just frame punish in Goku Moroha. Just don't miss it.

A better option against rekka's is to make them whiff as they all have very few active frames. This allows you to escape rather than punish and put yourself into a more advantagous position.

Dealing with unblockable

A.B.A's Blunder cannot be blocked on the ground. Using this unblockable in a string or just in pressure generally, has quite a few answers for May.

backdash the kick, which is only active for 1F
jump and FD the hit
whiner or whirlwind
Rolling restive if done early

However, you'll see this a lot more as an okizeme option. Usually with FB Avoidance (think hadouken) to put you into blockstun to prevent the previously mentioned escape routes before Blunder hits you. This can be very painful, as your options to escape are a very well timed dead angle attack or the two supers mentioned previously. Whirlwind is especially dangerous here because Avoidance has a great many hits to it and whilst you are absorbing the 6 hits with the armour you take highly increased amounts of chip damage before you then have to absorb Blunder before hitting A.B.A out of it. The reward for this is not great but can still be better than losing half your HP to getting hit by the setup.