Black Polnareff

## Introduction

During the story arc in Egypt, Jotaro and Polnareff are attacked by a Stand known as **Anubis** (アヌビス神 *Anubisu-shin*), a sword capable of controlling anyone who unsheathes it. After defeating Chaka and Khan, the Anubis sword cracks in half.

Polnareff accidentally unsheathes the sword while struggling with a policeman who's been trying to take it, allowing *Anubis* to possess his body.

**Black Polnareff** (or **Anubis Polnareff**) is a Passive Stand character, controlling both *Silver Chariot* and the broken *Anubis* sword at the same time. Black Polnareff is all about precision and rushdown as he has no long-range moves at his disposal. He has several ways to unleash deadly combos on his opponent, however, all of its variations are very difficult to pull off properly. Black Polnareff is also famous for his ridiculous 214+AA super.

### **Pros & Cons**

+ High damage combos
+ Powerful super move that can be comboed into
+ Many normals with good priority
+ Simple to play at a basic level
+ Fast meter build

- Passive Stand character
- Very limited movelist
- Learning optimal combos requires good knowledge of the game's mechanics
- Whiffed or blocked specials are very easy to punish
- Very limited okizeme options

## Movelist

### **Unique Moves**

#### *Silver Chariot* - **S**

Silver Chariot performs a specific attack depending on the direction held while using this attack. All of these moves can be used to cancel from normals. All of these attacks other than 2S and j.S have Polnareff play out one of two animations when used: one is significantly faster than the other, making them unreliable. All attacks from Silver Chariot are air unblockable except for the jumping variation.

**623 + A/B/C (while blocking)**

Air-UB

### **Special Moves**

#### **Rekka 50/50**

Here's a little trick that you can do, although it's NOT recommended to do often since it depends on how you condition the opponent. You can create a 50/50 situation with the low follow-up of the rekka and the overhead rekka.

236+B>214+A (no delay): Beats jumpouts (except 2 frame prejumps), overhead mix, gets beaten by most 5A/2A's.

236+B>236+B (minimal delay): Beats jumpouts, beats mashing, low mix but can be fuzzied easily.

236+B>236+B (long delay): Same as 214+A except it's a low mix.

**Remember to use them sparingly as you can get punished**, but these can lead to a reset which means the number of repetitions in the loop resets, so does scaling.

**214 + A/B/C**

**236 + S**

Air-UB

## Combos

   Black Polnareff can link most of his normals into most of his S moves, the exception being 6S which has some start up before the move actually hits. None of these combos make much damage, and leave Black Polnareff open for a counterattack.

Even though most of Black Polnareff's combos can be started off his jumping normals, they do require hitting pretty deep into the jump though, the most consistent normal for this being j.B. Black Polnareff's BnBs and longer combos require the use of his rekka special. He also has a lot of very difficult links which can lead to some devastating combos.

### **Basic Combos**

Here we will cover all of Black Polnareff's links before heading into his combos:

5A, 5A, 2B - Two jabs link into 2B.
2A, 5A, 2B - Crouching low jab into standing jab into 2B. 2A into 5A is quite tight so you could just go into your B rekka from 2A alone.
2A, 2A - Two crouching jabs. Quite tight, plus you need to cancel into 236B really fast.
5A, 2C - Standing jab into quickdraw slash.
2C, 5B - Quickdraw slash into toe kick. Not too difficult and quite useful.
2C, 5C - Frame perfect link.
2C, 6C - Slightly easier than the one above, but note that 6C has shorter range than 5C.

d.2C, 5A - Two frame link, quite useful. You can add more attacks after 5A if you want.

d.2C, 2A - You can follow up with 2A after a dashing 2C.

5A, CrC 5B - Requires a trick known as Crouch Canceling. By holding down during the duration of 5A, you can cancel a lot of the recovery frames with the crouching animation. Releasing down will allow you to combo into standing normals faster than it'd be normally possible to do.
5A, CrC 5C - Same as above. One frame link.

Black Polnareff is filled to the brim with frame perfect links, turning a very simple character into an insanely difficult to play beast. Fortunately, he can still do the basic stuff for decent damage as he can pretty much combo into his rekka special off any normal. His primary BnB looks like this:

(combo starter) xx 236+B/C>236+B/C>236+S, d.5C - Rekka into Chariot Spit into dashing C which either launches or causes hard knockdown depending on the combo count. If done to early, the 236S will hit the opponent before they can be knocked down, launching them. Basic, simple, does high damage and builds a lot of meter. DO NOT USE 236+S AGAINST CHARACTERS WITH STAND ON UNLESS YOU CAN STAND CRASH THEM. They will not be knocked down with the final hit regardless, and that can lead to an easy punish.

You can either go for the links mentioned above or just link into the rekka special off any normal. It's up to you.

Some other combos you might find useful:

(combo starter) xx 623+A/B/C - Can be safely used on characters with their Stands On. It might be hard to perform with Light attacks. Just don't use the A and B variations in longer combos against characters with Stand On as they won't be launched and will recover from hitstun almost instantly.

(any normal) xx 4S - There are a lot of ways to combo into Black Polnareff's 4S launcher. The most useful is after an anti air 5A. Depending on the animation that Black Polnareff plays out, you may be able to combo a j.B or j.C after they get launched, with j.B being a lot more consistent but doing less damage.

5B/5C/6C/2C/d.2C xx 214+AA - These normals can combo into Black Polnareff's devastating super for some really high damage.

5B/d.5B/5C/6C/2C/d.2C xx 236+AA - These normals can combo into Black Polnareff's other super. Not as strong but still quite flashy.

j.A/B/C xx j.S - Simple midair combo, best used when hitting the opponent while they're lower than you are when backjumping: other jump arcs are inconsistent due to j.S's trajectory and hitbox.

### **Combo Loop**

Before we go into the loop into detail, Black Polnareff can combo into the loop or just the BnB from a lot of starters. The notation is also added here:

2A, 2A (or 2A) xx 236+B>236+B>236+S;

2B xx 236+B>236+B>236+S;

5B xx 236+B>236+B>236+S;

5C xx 236+B/C>236+B/C>236+S (use 236+B if in corner and 236+C if midscreen, 5C is usually used from a bit far);

j.A/B/C, 2A/2B xx 236+B>236+B>236+S (j.A is not pretty useful, stick to j.B and j.C)

j.C, 5B xx 236+B>236+B>236+S;

d.2B xx 236+B>236+B>236+S;

d.2C, 2A / d.2C, 5A CrC 5B / d.2C, 5A, 2B (or 2A) xx 236+B>236+B>236+S (d.2C can link into rekka itself and into more normals; 2A route leads to rekka while 5A needs to be CrC'd into 5B for it to confirm into the rekka; 5A can also link into 2B or 2A);

Black Polnareff can loop his basic combo as long as he keeps close to his opponent. It is very difficult to do, but possible on most characters. It's also much easier to perform in a corner, as you will stick closer to the opponent, but, it's still possible outside of it. Note that 5A which is essential in this combo will whiff some of the shorter characters in the game. There is an alternative version of the loop which might work against them.

Here's how the basic CORNER version of the loop looks like:
(combo starter) xx 236+B>236+B>236+S, d.j/hh.A/B/C, 5A, 5A, CrC 5B xx 236+B>236+B>236+S and repeat.

As you can see, after recovering from 236+S, you should instantly go for a hyper hop to recover distance and get closer to the opponent. Try to get as close so that you can land two jabs and a crouch canceled normal right after it. If done right, you won't drop the combo and Silver Chariot will recover from Chariot's Spit in time for you to go for the rekka again and repeat the whole process.

Now, here's where the hard part of this starts, while this should also work outside of the corner, Chariot Spit is quite heavily range-dependent, meaning that fewer hits from it might cause your jump-in to fail, which is why it's not as good outside of the corner. Still, if done right, it is possible against most characters in the game, which makes it a really overpowered tool, as looped once, it does over 40% damage if not more, and it can lead to a Stand Crash, too.

Some alternative loop versions which you might want to try out:
(combo starter) xx 236+B>236+B>236+S, dash, d.2C, 5A, 5A, CrC 5B xx 236+B>236+B>236+S and repeat - Recommended only against characters with wide hitboxes (some characters with Stand On like DIO), as 5A, 5A link can whiff easily otherwise.

(combo starter) xx 236+B>236+B, 2A xx 236+B>236+B and repeat. - Works against Iggy, Alessi, Devo and Khan only for some reason. 2A into 236+B is very tight. Has a tendency to go out of range after a few loops, but can be easily done without the corner. Very useful in those particular matchups, considering these four can duck under 5A.

Now that the loop has been detailed, you need to end it in something. There are three main enders for the loop:

j.C, 5A, 5A CrC 5B xx 236+AA (the main ender, also the flashiest);

d.5C (the easiest one, does the least amount of damage and it's unsafe on stand on characters);

j.C, 5A, 5A CrC 5B xx 623+C (contester to 236+AA, probably as good if not better. It doesn't require meter).

### **Crouch Loop / Alternative Loop**

This alternative loop is used for characters that can duck under 5A, therefore 5A not hitting them.

For example: crouching characters (Alessi, Khan, Devo, Iggy and other characters that have a low profile when crouching).

Due to not being able to loop with the 5A, 5A CrC 5B, there is another way to perform the loop on these characters:

(combo starter) xx 236+B/C>236+B/C>236+S, d.j.C, 2C, 5B xx 236+B/C>236+B/C>236+S and so on. The only characters that can be looped midscreen (while crouching) with this loop method are: Shadow DIO, DIO, Iggy, Devo, Alessi, Vanilla Ice, Hol Horse/Hol Horse & Boingo, Mariah, Black Polnareff, Kakyoin, Avdol, Chaka, stand on Midler. It mostly depends on the character's hurtbox and it may work on more characters than those who are written here. Some of these characters can also be looped with the normal CrC loop even if they're crouching because of their tall hurtboxes. These loops can be ended, as usual, with any of the enders.

In the corner you gotta wait a bit before jumping. The visual cue would be doing 236+B/C just as 236+S fades away when you start repeating.

Note: For Devo's loop, in corner, you need to wait a bit more because 236+S hits more times.

## Tech Playlist for Black Polnareff

Here is a YouTube playlist with compiled Black Polnareff tech. It's an **important** watch and should be taken seriously.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbf23SPPUSCi6SijZdEOmvkPVspmfdCKS

## General Strategy

Black Polnareff's movelist is very lacking, however, he still has a lot of tools that make regular Polnareff so good, most notably his amazing jump-in j.B and a long range poke that is 2B (regular Polnareff's 2B) in this situation. His attacks are generally quite powerful and his normals can be devastating if used correctly. His major weakness are his special attacks and supers that can be easily punished if used improperly, as well as his lack of long range attacks, forcing him to chase down all of his opponents. Black Polnareff is very powerful up close and his normal attacks are fast enough to interrupt a lot of other characters.

His j.B has some pretty strong priority making a good air to ground AND air to air option, while his j.C has the largest hitbox out of all of his jumping attacks. Both are decent in their own way, while j.A is generally your fastest option.

Outside of his loop, Black Pol doesn't have the long combos and high damage other characters can achieve, forcing him to play relatively defensive until you can confirm a hit into his Rekka or in some matchups, you can opt for a more offensive strategy constantly pressuring the opponent with quick jabs and air normals and looking for opportunities to confirm into combos. This will usually end in a knockdown giving Black Polnareff some minor Oki but its not very effective. During okizeme, use either a jump-in attack or d.2B as a meaty. Note that every successful combo will build a lot of your meter.

What you do need to be on the lookout for are jump-ins and whiff punishes. B.Pols 214+AA is air UNBLOCKABLE and does a very large amount of damage. This makes any mistake by your opponent a huge advantage for you.
The super also has a very long amount of invincibility, starting from once you activate the move (before the super flash) to after Silver Chariot thrusts forward. Still, it is a tool that cannot be abused as some characters can punish it point blank.

## Matchup Strategy

#### Abdul

You need to watch out for Abdul's quick normals. Black Polnareff lacks a good anti-air to fight against his jump-ins, but your well-timed jump-in can easily lead to a combo, while 214+AA super can be devastating against Abdul players that love jumping. Just don't spam the move while they're about to double jump over your head, and of course, watch out for the projectiles.

#### Alessi

Similarly to Abdul, you need to watch out for his fast normals, most notably Alessi's 2C sweep. A lot of Black Polnareff's meaty normals will pass through Alessi's offense.

#### Black Polnareff

If you see the opponent preparing 214+AA super, respond with the same thing. Remember that B.Pol's the strongest while he's controlling the ground, not the air. Be careful when you use some of your heavies as they might be punished easily.

#### Chaka

Watch out for his fast jump-ins and you should be fine.

#### Devo

Keep assaulting Devo with your ground normals and try to block all of his jump-in attempts. You won't be able to punish the doll if it's right behind you unless you push Devo away, jump back and time one of your jumping attacks right.

#### DIO

d.2B is a very effective punish tool, while 2A and d.2C have good hitboxes and are pretty quick. Watch out whenever DIO has his Stand On, as any whiffed move will most likely cost you a ton of life.

#### Hol Horse

You'll end up chasing Hol all around the stage. A well-timed dashing attack can interrupt his attempts at spamming glass, forcing Hol to either use some close range attacks after the recovery or try to roll past through you. Don't whiff attacks from fullscreen and you should be fine. 214+AA can be very useful in this matchup. Note that your grab, while doing damage from punishing rolls, also knocks Hol all the way to the opposite part of the screen. It's up to you whether you want to use it or attempt to punish Hol's rolls in some other way.

#### Hol & Boingo

Same deal as with the regular Hol, except, it might be harder to approach him due to the nature of the S bullet. Still, once you lay your finger on him, Hol will have a hard time.

#### Iggy

d.2B is your best friend and it can quickly interrupt Iggy's attacks. Watch out when you jump-in as Iggy might counter you back with his down/up charge or block the attempt while gliding.

#### Joseph

Gain advantage by using your fast normals. 214+AA is quite good in this matchup as Joseph doesn't have very fast attacks, and his jumping speed is very mediocre too.

#### Jotaro

Your low attacks and good jump-ins should open up Jotaro. Still, you need to watch out when you attack him as he can easily punish your attempts.

#### Kakyoin

You'll need to chase Kakyoin all around the stage while blocking everything he throws at you. You can attempt to use the spinning swords to cut through Kakyoin's nets or just try to rush him before he has time to lay them around.

#### Khan

Khan will try to carefully approach you without abusing his easy to punish attacks. Try to stay on the ground unless you see an opening, as Khan will definitely try to anti-air your jump-ins. Your attacks should in theory have slightly better range overall. You can also try to fish out a learning counter on his primary normals to disable his entire game and force him to make dumb mistakes.

#### Mariah

Just rush her before she's able to lay any traps. Her outlets are quite strong against Black Polnareff, so you should avoid them at all costs. Never back out as you have no way of negating her chip damage. Mariah's electric burn cables are especially deadly to Black Polnareff, as his special Stand attacks aren't too good at cutting them.

#### Midler

You need to observe what Midler does and learn her patterns. Performing random jump-ins will most likely get you killed before you can lay a finger on her unless you see a 2C coming. Approach her carefully, but mind her Dinner Time super.

#### New Kakyoin

New Kakyoin without his emerald splash and slightly worse normals becomes a much easier target for Black Pol. Most of his attacks will be easily punished by your 214+AA super. Just watch out whenever New Kakyoin's in the air, as he can quickly dash behind you or super you from fullscreen if you're not careful.

#### Petshop

~~I guess I'll just die.~~ Mash that 214+AA and hope you survive. j.B is your best friend. Big chances are most of your combos won't even work because Petshit's dumb hurtbox will negate most of your lows.

#### Polnareff

The best way to fight Polnareff is to keep interrupting his charge motion specials. Try to find an opening and never let go. Remember that when it comes to normals, both you and him share some of the best Stand Off pokes he has at his disposal with nearly the same properties.

#### Shadow Dio

Learning counter can be very good against Shadow Dio's Stand attack, you still need to watch out which button you press to counter his attacks, as you will need to go for Dio's body, not his Stand.

#### Rubber Soul

Considering Black Polnareff has only physical attacks, Rubber Soul's counter is very powerful. He will attempt to play it safe and dash away while leaving projectile traps, chipping away at your health. You need to wait until Rubber Soul makes a mistake and find a hole in his zoning attempts. If Rubber's more aggressive, try using grabs or punish his Stand attacks with 214+AA.

#### Vanilla Ice

2B is one of your best friends here. While very risky, using learning counter on his 2A will pretty much disable most of his combo potential, as long as you can still block it of course. His Stand On normals have better hitboxes than your best pokes, but with proper timing, you should be still able to catch him off-guard. Watch out for his ball attacks as they come out very fast and might interrupt some of your slower normals. 214+AA is rather risky to use, even when you think you got the upper hand, Ice's hurtboxes can be very deceiving.

#### Young Joseph

As with many zoners, try to approach Young Joseph and simply don't let him run away. You should be able to poke your way out of clacker spam by doing a quick dash 2B. Watch out for his overdrive as it will easily interrupt your attempts at approaching him.