Mach Tornado

Mach Tornado
	; Mach Tornado in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U.
User	Meta Knight
Universe	Kirby
Article on WiKirby	Mach Tornado

This article is about Meta Knight's neutral special move. For Luigi's custom down special, see Mach Cyclone.

“	Attack by turning into a tornado. Move left and right while spinning.	”
—Brawl manual description

“	Spin and strike enemies. Press repeatedly to spin longer.	”
—Description from the Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS Foldout

Mach Tornado (マッハトルネイド, Mach Tornado) is Meta Knight's neutral special move. It involves Meta Knight spinning in a controllable tornado, which traps opponents and slashes them for consistent damage.

Overview

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl

When activated, Meta Knight spins at high speed and surrounds himself in a dense yellow tornado that covers a majority of him for a set period of time, which can be extended by mashing the special button; mashing also causes Meta Knight to rise up vertically. More vertical distance is gained if the player simultaneously jumps and performs the move. Mach Tornado can be controlled by pressing left or right to move in that direction. Once complete, Meta Knight falls helpless.

The tornado causes a slight pull on nearby opponents. Enemies that touch the tornado are trapped, slashed multiple times, and then sent flying with a final hit that deals moderate knockback. The move is hard to escape via directional influence, and the final hit deals moderate knockback, making it an effective KO finisher if enemies are near the top blast line.

Brawl's version of Mach Tornado grants a significant amount of aerial mobility, making one of the best recovery moves in the game; in addition to granting high horizontal distance, it travels a good distance vertically and can be made to change directions quickly. Furthermore, the move possesses near instantaneous start-up lag, and has multiple large hitboxes that can clash with ground and aerial hitboxes (including projectiles, so long as they deal 9% or less and/or do not possess transcendent priority). With all these considered, Mach Tornado is often considered an extremely safe and effective move when regarding its overall recovery and offensive potential.

The move is not completely infallible, however; Meta Knight will bounce off edges rather than grab them during the move, and is additionally unable to grab edges during the first few frames of his helpless animation. This can potentially cause a self-destruct if the move is mistimed. Additionally, missing and ending the move near the top of the screen is punishable, and Meta Knight receives an additional 20% knockback if he is hit out of Mach Tornado.

The mobility and damage potential granted by Mach Tornado makes it one of the staple finishing moves of the Rufio combo, especially against fastfallers.

In Super Smash Bros. 4

Mach Tornado returns as Meta Knight's neutral special move in Smash 4. Unlike in Brawl, Meta Knight simply cloaks himself in yellow winds instead of a solid tornado.

With the reduced effectiveness of Directional Influence on multi-hitting attacks, Mach Tornado retains its effectiveness at trapping opponents and dealing high damage (compared to the majority of Meta Knight's attacks), in addition to having higher base knockback on the final hit. However, the move's duration and mobility have been nerfed considerably; it lasts a much shorter amount of time unless the player button mashes, and its reduced horizontal and vertical mobility give it more limited use as a recovery (vertical movement is especially affected). This is further burdened by the move being unable to edge sweetspot for its duration until Meta Knight becomes helpless.

Offensively, Mach Tornado's hitbox placements are arguably worse; when including its higher ending lag and the removal of transcendent priority throughout Meta Knight's moveset, this prevents the move from being a solid invincibility option and makes it easier to punish. The aforementioned reductions to the move's mobility also prevents Mach Tornado from functioning as an effective finisher for the Rufio combo.

Overall, Mach Tornado now functions mainly as an out of shield move, typically used as a punishment option to rack up significant damage, due to it dealing much more damage compared to the rest of his attacks.

Customization

Special Move customization was added in Super Smash Bros. 4. These are the variations:

1. Mach Tornado	2. Entangling Tornado	3. Dreadful Tornado

"Twirl and hit enemies multiple times. Press repeatedly to increase spin."	"Pull enemies in, and then hit them straight up into the air."	"A more powerful Mach Tornado, but the amount of spins can't be increased."

Mach Tornado: Default.
Entangling Tornado: Pulls in enemies and deals a more powerful single hit with a more vertical knockback angle, but it does only 9% damage and has less horizontal control in the air.
Dreadful Tornado: More damage per hit, but it cannot be extended by mashing the button, giving it less overall damage potential (21% → 13%), and it has more ending lag. However, its knockback is significantly stronger and KOs from center stage around 135%.

Entangling Tornado being used in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS.
Dreadful Tornado used in Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS.

Origin

Control-wise, this move is like Kirby's "Tornado" ability that appears in many of the Kirby games. Holding B will make him gain height. Meta Knight first used it in Kirby Super Star, where he transformed into a yellow tornado to attack. In the actual Kirby games, Mach Tornado refers to an attack that he (and Dark Meta Knight) uses where he flies to the side of the screen and launches a gigantic tornado towards the other side of the screen by charging and then stabbing his sword to the ground.

In Kirby Super Star Ultra, Meta Knight stars in his own mode, Meta Knightmare Ultra, which involves him replaying various levels from other sub-games. In said game mode, defeating enemies would allow him to gain points to perform various special techniques. The strongest technique is also named Mach Tornado, but is instead a screen-clearing attack similar to a Final Smash, instead of a small tornado. As Kirby Super Star Ultra was released after Brawl, it's likely that the move was named after Meta Knight's neutral special.

Kirby: Planet Robobot also names his variant of the airborne Twister Slash technique Mach Tornado, though his grounded version features the yellow trail commonly associated with the move.