Style: Projectile Rushdown
Most Similar To: Nobody
Strengths: Maya is extremely mobile in the neutral game, which can make her incredibly hard to react to and pin down. She has fast dashes, and far-reaching dash jump which can create pressure and cross-ups out of nowhere. But her biggest strength is her dagger projectiles. When blocked, they reward Maya with upgrades that can be applied in numerous ways later in the match, including insane damage or unblockable setups, and refusing to block them will let Maya convert into a combo, even from full screen. The only way to stop Maya from gaining some benefit is to avoid the daggers entirely, which is easier said than done.
Weaknesses: Maya has two pronounced weaknesses; she does low damage, and her options are limited when she's not holding her daggers. Because the daggers are so focal to her entire gameplan, without them she does poor damage and her mixups are much less scary. If you can forcibly remove her from her daggers, Maya is very beatable.
Unique Mechanic: Daggers
and a punch button. While on the ground, they travel horizontally at normal height, but you can also throw them while jumping, which sends them at a downward diagonal angle. While dashing forward, you can also throw the daggers simply by pressing a punch button. LP corresponds to the light dagger, MP corresponds to the dark dagger, and HP will always throw both, if you have them. Once you've thrown a dagger, it will either bounce off your opponent and land on the ground near him (if you're close, you're likely to catch it as it bounces), or it will travel past him and come to rest when it stops traveling, often somewhere entirely off screen.
If you want this dagger back, you have to go get it. You can pick up daggers a few ways; you can press PPP while on top of a dagger to pick it up, you can collect them by dashing forwards or backwards overtop them, and Maya will automatically pick up any dagger she travels over when doing her Tumble Kick special move (including Tumble Kick and Leap Kick linkers). When you're not holding a dagger, the button that would normally correspond to your missing dagger will trigger kick moves instead, which means Maya loses access to certain important normals and anti-airs. If you're missing either dagger, you also lose access to any option that involves the HP button. Your opponent is going to try to prevent you from picking these daggers back up as best he can.
Why are these daggers so good? First of all, on hit, they have a lot of hitstun, which means Maya can easily confirm into a combo using an easy manual. In fact, she can even do this from full screen away, by dashing forward and throwing another dagger, and then dash jumping towards the opponent. However, and this is what's especially unique about Maya, blocking the daggers is also a bad idea. When you block a dagger, Maya earns a pip for that color in her unique dagger meter, up to a maximum of 2 pips per color. Each pip earned changes the behavior of the daggers when you throw the dual daggers using HP (and only the dual dagger version), and these unique bonuses stack together.
The light pips affect the dual dagger's movement. Light level 1 causes the projectile to bounce off the ground, while light level 2 will additionally cause it to track the opponent until it hits them. The dark pips affect the dual dagger's durability. Dark level 1 causes the daggers to crush all other projectiles, while dark level 2 additionally makes the daggers fully unblockable. That means if you're able to get them to block 2 light daggers and 2 dark daggers, you will have access to a one-time-use tracking, bouncing, unblockable projectile which cannot be stopped by other projectiles. If Maya releases this thing, you will get hit, and you must try to mitigate the damage by jumping and taking an air hit, or combo breaking the followup.
But that's not all! Maya can additionally use her dagger levels to add extra damage to her damage ender. If Maya does her Spirit Strike combo ender, each pip that is filled in the dagger gauge will increase the ender level. This means Maya is capable of using a level 8 damage ender if she can build a combo to level 4 and also has 4 pips. This combo is going to kill you if she earns it.
Maya's daggers are really unique not only in Killer Instinct, but in fighting games in general. They give her a very unique take on the risk/reward mechanic that doesn't involve lower health values; she must convince you to block or get hit by the daggers, but if you ever manage to avoid one, she'll have to work pretty hard to get it back, and is a much more limited character in the meantime. Once she has the dagger meter, she can choose to spend it on an unblockable projectile that can't be avoided, or try to land a hit using other tools and then spend it on a damage increase. Diverse and interesting playstyles emerge from this, making Maya a scary threat when she's sitting on full dagger meter.
Openers: Tumble Kick (shadow OK), Axe KickThat list looks really short, but Maya has ways to begin combos that don't start off these openers. Tumble Kick is a safe on block pressure string ender that you can use if you don't have daggers, but it always hits twice and can be shadow countered, so be wary. Axe Kick is a slow overhead attack command normal (+HK), but Maya leaps off the ground, avoiding throws and lows, and if Maya holds HK, she can fake the kick and go low instead. Axe Kick also recaptures, which is very important if you're juggling the opponent with daggers and want to start a grounded combo. Most of her combos will start because her opponent did not block a dagger. If Maya is close to her opponent already, she can easily time a manual and start the combo that way instead, and if she's far away, she can keep you pinned with another dagger as she moves closer to you to begin her combo.
Tumble Kick moves Maya forward, while Leap Kick (normally her uppercut) changes into a backwards version of Tumble Kick when used as a linker. These movement options allow Maya to push and pull her opponent towards her missing daggers, so she can go pick them up in the middle of a combo. The shadow versions of each require staggered timing to break, but they're not very difficult. But like the openers, this list isn't the full story. Maya can also apply her combo trait to combo with daggers in the middle of a combo. This is the only time a projectile is combo breakable in the game, and Maya must throw her dagger at you from very close range, but if she hits, she has +16 frame advantage and can land any strength manual afterwards, circumventing the normal manual restrictions after a linker. Note that if you choose to combo break the dagger linkers, the yellow one is always breakable with lights, while the purple one is always breakable with mediums. Use the color to help you out.
Enders: Damage: Spirit Strike (Ender Level boosted by dagger pips), Exchange Launcher: Leap Kick, Hard Knockdown: Tumble KickMaya has uses for all three of her enders. The hard knockdown version is particularly useful if you want to throw shadow Spirit Slicer (the dual daggers) on top of an opponent for a mixup, or to force them to block it for some dagger pips. The Leap Kick ender allows Maya to follow up with some unbreakable dagger damage before landing an Air Mantis. The main damage dealer is Spirit Strike. If you have full dagger pips, even just performing a very short combo and finishing with a level 1 ender will do over 50% damage, as the 4 dagger pips get added to form a level 5 ender, and if you can get to level 8, look out. You'll notice that Maya really needs dagger pips to secure damage, though; the other two enders cash out the white life but not much more.
Instinct Mode: What's the best instinct mode to give to a person who desperately needs a resource to compete? When Maya pops instinct, her daggers immediately return to her hands, no matter where on screen they were, and they will return to her after being thrown for the remainder of instinct. This is scary for numerous reasons. First of all, it means that if Maya throws a dagger poorly and you're blocking her from getting it back, eventually she'll take enough damage such that she will get it back, no matter your intervention. Secondly, it means that Maya has some really dirty setups. For example, if she forces you to block a shadow Spirit Slicer and your blocks cause the dagger meter to reach 4 pips, she can pop instinct and get both daggers back immediately, then throw the unblockable projectile and start a combo, and there's not a whole lot you can do about it except try to take the hit in the air or combo break the follow-up. It also means if you get hit with a full screen dagger, Maya can start dashing and throwing daggers at you, which will keep returning to her hands so she can throw more. Since the daggers are unbreakable unless Maya is close, she can run up 20% unbreakable damage from a fast, full screen projectile and still start a combo.Normals to watch: Be careful of Maya's crouching MK, as it's a farther reaching low attach than most crouching MKs in the game and leads to a combo or a blocked dagger pretty easily. Standing MK is also good for covering space in front of Maya when she's not holding daggers. However, most of her exceptional normals involve her punch normals while holding daggers. Crouching HP is an excellent anti-air, even though it has a bit of startup, and jumping HP is an absolutely mammoth crossup that she can do out of a dash jump, which seems to cross up from well over half screen away. Far standing HP is a two-hit attack that will put you in massive block stun; if Maya cancels this normal into shadow Spirit Slicer on block, you'll be forced to fill her dagger meter to max. Better shadow counter the second hit while you can! Air Mantis is an aerial command grab (+HP in air) that grabs all standing and jumping opponents for 14% unbreakable damage. Crouch it to avoid it entirely, but it comes out pretty fast and is good bait if the opponent tries to jump away from daggers, or high block a jump-in or Axe Kick. If Maya is not holding both daggers, she loses access to all of these moves, so losing even a single dagger has far-reaching consequences for Maya's gameplay.
Specials to watch: It's all about the daggers. In addition to simply throwing light and dark daggers, hoping you will either block them in a block string or get hit by them for a combo, Maya can throw a shadow version using both daggers. Shadow Spirit Slicer throws both daggers directly in front of Maya as a "spinner", which places a giant hitbox on the screen that hits 4 times. If you block all 4 of these hits, Maya will fill her dagger meter to max, full stop, and Maya has setups that basically force the opposition to block it. Once shadow Spirit Slicer is over, however, the daggers will violently separate, forcing Maya to go to great lengths to pick them up unless she has you cornered or has instinct available.
Leap Kick is Maya's uppercut, and it's a bit of a weird move. Maya travels at three different trajectories depending on the strength used, and she can throw a dagger any time after the apex of the move. If you block this move, punishing it is actually very difficult, because Maya can throw a dagger at various times, and if you choose to block the dagger, not only is Maya safe, but you've given her a dagger pip. Your best bet is probably to try to walk under the Leap Kick after you block it and try to punish Maya in trip guard frames after she lands, but this is easier said than done and will require some practice. Recently, some balance changes to the move make the DP more stuffable; light DP is the most invincible non-shadow version but it runs out of invincibilty one frame before it becomes active now, which means perfect meaties will always work. If Leap Kick is giving you trouble, take it to the lab and try to stuff it with a perfect meaty or a deep jumping crossup.
General strategy: If you have both daggers, your first goal should be to force the opponent to block a few of them. Against beginner opponents, this is actually quite easy; simply throw a dagger after any blocked normal, which will gain you a dagger pip and the dagger is also likely to bounce directly back into your hands. You can also throw them from the air or from Leap Kicks. Wiser opponents, however, will come up with clever ways to avoid your daggers (such as by low-profiling them; the dagger hitbox is quite far off the ground) which will send them flying hopelessly off screen, and they'll dare you to approach it with your weakened moveset. If you can play this dagger mind game well and have a high success rate for your daggers getting blocked or hitting, Maya is a nightmare to deal with. If you lose some of your daggers early, in the worst case you might have to wait until your instinct gauge fills to get them back, which is a lot of life lost for one error. Maya's non-traditional approach to offense means blocking is often a bad idea, and will require some creative insight to overcome. The reward is worth it, though; a Maya without daggers has one foot in the grave.