Marvel vs. Capcom/Cable

Cable has an entirely interesting, yet confusing past. He was born Nathan Summers in the modern day to Scott Summers (aka Cyclops) and Madelyn Prior (who was later revealed to be a genetic clone of Jean Gray). As the son of two very powerful mutants, he is very powerful as well. However, at a young age, Apocalypse infected him with a virus called the techno-organic virus which threatened to kill him. A being from 2000 years in the future named Askani appeared, claiming that Cable was destined to save their people, and that they would cure him of the disease. Cyclops agreed to let his son go in order to save him

Cable did travel to the future, but his disease could not be cured. Instead, he was trained to use his telekinetic abilities to keep what damage the techno-organic virus had done to his body in check so it could not grow beyond control. As a teenager Cable ultimately defeated Apocalypse. As a grown up, he returned to his own time in order to deal with a clone of himself named Stryfe, who had become a madman. While he remained active in the present, he frequently engaged in time travel whenever the need arose.

As a mutant, Cable's physical attributes have been enhanced to superhuman levels. His principal mutant powers are his vast telepathic and telekinetic abilities. He can employ the latter to levitate objects and to create protective force shields. He must continually employ his telekinetic powers to prevent the techno-organic virus from affecting the rest of his body. His techno-organic left arm and shoulder possess even greater strength than his entirely organic ones. Cable's techno-organic right eye can see into the infrared portion of the spectrum. He is also a highly accomplished warrior and battle strategist, highly adept in multiple forms of hand-to-hand combat and in the uses of many kinds of weaponry, both of the 20th and 40th Centuries.

Cable could very well be the most powerful mutant in the Marvel universe, if it were not for his need to use a portion of his powers to keep the techno-organic virus in check.

Basic Strategy
Cable is at his best when he has at least one assist, and meter. While characters like Storm and Sentinel are more free to use their meter for chip, it is better to save Cable's meter for air hyper viper beam (AHVB) combos. Without at least one meter, Cable's midscreen damage is quite low. However, with as little as one meter, he can do half of most characters health bar off most basic combos. With 3 meter, he can usually kill a character in most situations (Barring Sentinel)

Notable Assists
Sentinel - Ground - Sentinel's ground assist works amazingly well with Cable. It hits multiple times, leaving the opponent in blockstun for a good length, controls the space in front of Cable very well, has super armor, allowing Sent to eat at least one hit, so that the drones usually get out, does fairly good chip, it if it hits, is very easy to hit confirm into TK AHVB. Combined with Cable's grenades and lp beam, Cable can control pretty much all of the lower half of the screen when the drones are out.

Captain Commando - AntiAir - Good startup, good priority, good damage, good hitbox, and knocks the opponent far back on hit, which is where you generally want them to be as Cable. In the basic Cable/Sentinel team, CapCom is usually the Antiair assist of choice, due to these factors, and that Captain Corridor's EXTREMELY good vertical hitbox allows for Sentinel to utilize him greatly, even when flying near the top of the screen.

Psylocke - Antiair - Basic Antiair assist, that leaves opponents in a juggle state until they hit the ground. Easy tk AHVB an opponent off of Psylcoke's assist

Ken - AntiAir - Completely invincible until recovery. You can summon Ken's antiair assist during the super freeze for Storm's hailstorm super, and he can hit her out of it. If he misses, he still won't take any damage from the hailstorm. It's a LOT of invincibility. The downside of this is the lack of good damage, and you can't really combo AHVB off it

Basic Combos
This is a short list of some basic, and useful combos for Cable. It should be noted that all of these can be combined with certain assists for more damage, but the listed combos are composed solely of Cable only combos.

lp = Light Punch lk = Light Kick hp = Heavy Punch hk = Heavy Kick tk = tiger knee motion (AKA a Tiger Knee Air Hyper Viper Beam would be, on the ground, Down, Down Forward, Forward, Up Forward, two punch buttons, so that Cable preforms an AHVB right when he leaves the ground) xx - Cancel. Normals can be canceled into specials or supers at anytime (Including startup frames, and on whiff), Specials can be canceled into Supers at anytime sjc = Super Jump Cancel, canceling out the recovery of a normal with a super jump. Generally, the normal has to hit for you to be able to sjc it.

1) tk AHVB (Mash to aim beam low) > tk AHVB (Mash to aim the beam high) > jump AHVB (Mash to aim the beam high) - Cable's basic midscreen punish, and your followup to trapping someone in a grenade. EXTREMELY fast startup. Unless a character has full health, this will usually kill them. Use it to punish any whiffed normals. It also goes right through fireballs, so anytime any character throws a fireball, it's a free AHVB x3 on them. It should be noted the the order for aiming and executing the AHVB (tk low, tk high, jump high) applies to most of Cable's combos

2) lk > lk > hk > tk sjc AHVB (Mash to aim the beam low) > tk AHVB > (Mash to aim the beam high) > jump > AHVB (Mash to aim the beam high) -Cable's basic ground string. You have to preform the Tiger Knee AHVB motion quickly during hk, as it needs to also work as a super jump (Down, Up), or you end up with ground HVB, which is punishable even if you hit. It is reccomended to start with standing light kick, as it his a suprisingly good reach. However, it should be noted the crouching lp is Cable's fastest starting normal, so if they are very close, substitute the lk's for lp's. If you do not have the meter for AHVB x3, and the second WON'T kill them, it is generally better to save your meter, and just go with AHVB x1

3) hp > hp > hp > hp xx lp Psimitar xx AHVB x3 -Cable's basic, midscreen big damage combo. VERY easy to hitconfirm due to the multiple gunshots, big damage. If you're Sent assist hits a grounded opponent, and you aren't in normal range, this is your go to.

Killing Sentinel
Due to Sentinel's larger hitbox, you can generally hit him with more AHVBs. It takes 5 meter to kill him, but it's generally worth the meter to get rid of Sent. The AHVB string goes: TK AHVB low > TK AHVB high > jump AHVB low > tk AHVB high > jump AHVB low. In training mode, you can set your meter to infinite, and practice this continually, as it is an infinite with unlimited meter. Bringing it to 999 hits in training mode is a great way to work on your execution.

Misc
Miscellaneous information that I thought was also worth imparting

-NEVER EVER EVER EVER use Ground Hyper Viper Beam.- EVER. On block, pretty much anyone can punish for most of your health. Even if you hit your opponent, many characters can still do massive damage to you. In a Cable vs Cable match, you can get hit with GHVB, and recover in time to punish the hit with AHVB x3

-Most of your movelist is useless.- standing lp whiffs on crouching opponents, crouching hp can be punished with AHVB on hit, Psycharge and crackdown don't help your gameplan at all, hp viper beam does mostly the same damage as lp viper beam, but with a more punishable recovery, and it leaves you floting in the air, waiting to be hit in case it whiffs on your opponent. Avoid using them, for the most part

-Gunshots whiff on crouching opponents.- However, this often doesn't much matter if they aren't extremely close. if they summon an assist, it'll likely eat the gunshots, and they can't preform any non crouching moves without getting hit. Beware, however, of characters with slides (Mainly, Magneto's crouching hk), as preforming a gunshot within their slide range is a no-no

-Jumping gunshot ignores super armor.- If you jump and fire a gunshot close enough to the ground while a super armored character (IE, Sent) is doing something, they go into hitstun. If you know the gunshot will hit, you can follow the low gunshot up with tk AHVB

-Control the screen.- Use grenades to prevent an opponent from being able to jump, while using a Sent assist to keep them from being able to wavedash forward.

-Keep away.- Cable generally wants space between him and his opponent. If your opponent gets close, use a Sent assist to put them in block stun, and super jump over them to the other side of the screen.

-Guard break your opponents next character- On the way in, an opponent can only block once. Once they leave block stun, they have to touch the ground before they can block again. Jump gunshot so that it hits them right as they come in, land, tk AHVB for big damage. If it's late in the match, and your opponents last two characters have low health, and you have a good amount of meter, one of your opponents team members dying means you can kill their whole team.

-Meter is important, don't waste it.- AHVBs chip damage is nothing compared to it's use a psychological weapon. The amount of damage AHVB does will make an opponent play far more carefully when you have meter. At 3 meters' they won't be able to do most anything that can be punished. Use this to your advantage, force them into situations where their options are limited.