Mercury

Mercury is a playable character in Madwatch 2. She was the 3rd character to be completed in development, proceeded by Aaroy and succeeded by Clover. However due to a myriad of flaws in her initial kit, she was fully reworked on v0.1.1 alongside the release of Merlynn. She debuts in Anyone Can Die Install 6: Sleeping Slaves as a major antagonist.

Mercury ranks 1st out of 11 characters on the current tier list, making her the highest ranked initial character(albeit reworked), veteran character from the original Madwatch and sole representative of her game. This is a far cry from her pre-rework appearance where she was almost unanimously regarded as the worst character overall. Mercury's most obvious strength is the sheer unrivaled mobility of her kit as a whole, boasting near the highest if not the top of all speed related attributes in every category combined with many mobility moves inside her attacks themselves. Her dash dash itself is incredibly ambiguous, making Mercury incredibly unpredictable in her approach options. Mercury has arguably the best combo game of the entire roster, with a myriad of extremely fast combo starters and extenders, 2 mid air jumps to further assist combos, and powerful combo ending kill moves that can be reliable confirmed into it. This means Mercury's advantage state can last for a very long duration with few options for the opponent to escape due to Mercury's near perfect frame data and ability to suffocate the opponent with her speed and safe attacks. Her light weight aside, Mercury's disadvantage state is also fantastic. Her air speed makes escaping combos by drifting away extremely viable and some combos will fail on Mercury regardless due to her light weight pushing her too far away to begin with. Vanguard grants Mercury 6 frames of invulnerability on frame 3, immediately allowing her to escape pressure for free and with the same speed, she can use Sonic Sway to outright reverse the opponent's advantage state and turn it into her own with almost nil risk to Mercury should it fail as she will dash away regardless if the opponent strikes her or not. Mercury's neutral game only scarcely suffers from a lack of projectile, as her absurd speed more than makes up for it. Sonic Sway makes it unviable to attempt to zone Mercury with projectiles as she will simply close the distance between the fighters even quicker on success. Premera Bestia is the core of Mercury's Special kit, making it near impossible for a majority of the cast to approach Mercury while it is active and forcing them to respect the radius around her as failing to do so will allow her enter Hyper Speed, which can easily result in the opponent losing their stock even at 0% depending on the opponent's position. Mercury can prime an approach with Sonic Sway as well, cancelling the endlag of the move into any action such as an attack or grab for an instant approach that can throw off many enemies and be difficult to intercept due to the counter frames provided before she dashes. Mercury's recovery is also good, courtesy of her 2 midair jumps, the movement of both Sonic Sway and Vanguard, and the decent vertical climb of Crownslayer, which restores control to Mercury if it hits an opponent with its powerful command grab. Her powerful arsenal often conditions the opponent to shield, which Mercury can exploit with her fantastic grab game, courtesy of her grab range, speed, and ability to cancel Sonic Sway;s endlag into an immediate grab. She gains great mileage from her throws as well, which each of them being very damaging and either killing, setting up for combos, or putting the opponent into a disadvantageous state. All in all, Mercury has essential no 'bad' moves in her kit, giving her neigh unparalleled versality.

Although she is widely considered the best character in the game, she does have some notable flaws. The most glaring if her endurance, which is bar none the worst in the game. She is not only the lightest weight character, but her tall frame and fast falling speed means she is essentially food for combos on many characters without using her specials. While Sonic Sway can alleviate this, it has a 3 second cooldown, unusual for a counter or movement ability, meaning there is a period of time where Mercury is entirely without it if baited. Premera Bestia, a staple in Mercury's neutral game, damages Mercury on startup and progressively more while charging it or if shielded. The ending lag also increases based on charge time if not successful, making it easily punishable by opponent with quick reaction times. Due to the self-damaging nature of her neutral and her featherlike weight, it may only take as little one solid interaction with Mercury to KO her outright. Her recovery, while serviceable, becomes much less varied if Mercury must recover from beneath the stage as only her jumps and Crownslayer grants respectable vertical movement, both of which are fairly easy to hit from directly above Mercury. Even with her incredible speed, she can struggle against characters with many disjoints due to her entirely melee nature or enemies that can freely control space that limit and restrict her movement routes.

Nevertheless, Mercury's strengths vastly outweigh her weaknesses and she is widely considered the strongest character on the roster. She has zero losing matchups with the entire roster, going even at worst with her 'bad' matchups, Giorno and Jeanne.

Attributes
[Character Overview]

WIP

Trivia

 * Mercury is one of the initial 4 characters of Madwatch 2. She shares this distinction with CLEAR, Aaroy, and Clover.
 * Mercury is the first and so far only character to be entirely reworked from the ground up.
 * Mercury is the only character in the game with innate multiple midair jumps.
 * Mercury is the sole character in Madwatch 2 who debuts in Anyone Can Die Install 6.
 * She is the first and only playable Ironblood monster and character who has never been human.