Hello again! I made a guide for how to punish defensive options in Marvel Tokon and as usual I'm including a written guide here! (don't worry mods gave the green light)

  
Let's get into it!

# Blocking

First up is an obvious one and that is blocking. A lot of people have a blockstring in their head that they will go for no matter what. But if you take note of what the enemy is doing in the moment, and actively adapt, then you can have an easier time opening them up.

You want to do a mix of lows, highs, and grabs. But if you always choose your mix option at the same point in your blockstring then it becomes very telegraphed and easy to deal with. So instead of going Light, Medium, Heavy, Mixy Shmixy thing, sometimes go for Light and then immediately into your overhead. Especially if your overhead is reactable. Every character has a low on their down Medium so if the enemy sees your down Medium then they know they can hold back to block anything high. So instead of doing Light, Medium, down Medium, Heavy, do Light, Medium, Overhead.

Let's say you play Magik and who doesn't have any built in grounded overheads or lows besides down Light/Medium then it can be harder to accomplish this. Instead you want to use them as a setup character. Call your assist, do some long move like Magik's quarter circle back + M, then tag out. Here you will use all of Magik's lockdown (blockstun) to do some kind of mix on your next character.

The last way to beat blocking is it's natural Rock/Paper/Scissors enemy, and that's grabbing. You can cancel your down Light or standing Light into the grab which will run you forward until they are out of blockstun and grab-able. You can also sprinkle these in here and there just to keep the enemy on their toes. Don't do it too much. You want them afraid just enough that they try to mash out and get hit when you do a strike instead.

But what if they tech your grab?

# Throw Teching/Escape

In Tokon the opponent can press throw in return which will tech your throw and bounce you both off eachother. When you think they expect your throw, instead of grabbing you want to put yourself airborne. This will make the enemy's throw whiff and give you a punish. This is called a 'shimmy' and you can shimmy in several ways. Jumping, backdashing, or doing an attack that puts you airborne. A couple good examples is Black Panther's Unique leap thingy, or Champion's down down Light/Medium/Heavy.

# Assemble Counter

This is when you press Light + Assemble while holding back. It is basically a parry that tanks 1 hit no matter if it's a low, mid, high, or even a grab! There are a couple ways to beat Assemble Counter:

* Bait it out - the counter doesn't last terribly long so if you feel it coming just wait and smack em up
* With an assist out you can do an attack on the point, tag, and if the enemy does Assemble Counter then it will activate on your previous point. The cool thing here is you can block the counter follow up on your new point character! This leaves you plus 16 which means you have over a 4th second of advantage and can swing on them with your Medium attack combo starter.

# Assemble Smash

This is when you press Light + Assemble without holding any direction. It is a lunging overhead but it can be used defensively to much lesser effect than Assemble Counter. You can do what you do to counter Assemble Counter by baiting it out. If you do an attack, tag, and then block, then you're only plus 5 which means it's your turn but not enough of a turn to get the punish.

So how do we punish it?

* The first is by breaking it's armor. Unlike Assemble Counter, Assemble Smash only has 1 hit of armor so you can break through it with multiple Light attacks and then get a combo.
* It can also be grabbed.
* If you do tag out then what you want to do is grab immediately on your new point.

# Airborne Assemble Smash

This is the weakest of the 3 and is done by pressing Light + Assemble in the air. It does not have armor to strikes, it gets beat by grabs, but it is invincible to projectiles. So if you're a zoner then watch out for this and either jump up there to strike/throw them, or stay grounded and anti-air them with down Heavy or something.

# Crossover

This is when you press Light + Assemble while you are blocking. When the enemy does this you want to press Light + Assemble in return. Depending on your timing it has varying effects. What you want to do is wait for the word 'CROSSOVER' to be about 5/6ths filled and then press Light + Assemble.

* When pressed early it is an imperfect counter. It brings your assist in, knocks back their assist, and leaves their point character standing. You are heavily plus here.
* When timed perfectly your assist comes in and knocks their assist into their point which knocks their point down. This sets up a lot of plus frames and an oki situation for you to run your shmix.

Couple things about this.

* Unlike initiating Crossover which does not require any Assist pip/ammo, reflecting it does require you to have a pip available.
* It also requires that you have an assist off cooldown.
* If you don't hold a direction it will automatically choose the next available assist.

Why would you want to manually choose? In case you want to be able to tag to that character for whatever reason. I think there's a lot to explore here with setting up oki situations where you cover let's say forward tech with your point, tag, then cover neutral/back tech.

# Reversals

A big thing you'll deal with is reversal Ultimates, specifically after you knock them down. There are a few ways to deal with this:

* Take note of their meter and bait it out
* Armor through that bad boi! Most the time you would have to pre-emptively swing but yeah, armored attacks beat reversals.
* During their super flash (the short cutscene that says "HEY THIS IS AN ULTIMATE ATTACK") you can press your own reversal which will trump theirs.
* Or safe jumping. This is a bit of an advanced counter but basically it is going airborne and hitting the opponent on the way down with a very meaty normal attack like your jump Light, Medium, Heavy, etc. By 'Meaty' I mean very soon after they wake up and are actionable. What this does is, if they don't reversal, then you make contact. They either block it or get hit and you go from there. If they do a reversal then their body goes intangible and you don't make contact. Their reversal animation starts, you land, and you have enough time to block whatever they're doing. In this sense you also have enough time to do a reversal of your own or even an Assemble Counter.
* The balance to this is if they wake up with Assemble Counter. Because this does not make their body intangible, and you can still make contact, then they will parry you.

I hope this helps and please let me know if you have any questions down below! I'll do my best to answer them. Have fun out there!

How to Punish Every Defensive Option (written guide inside)