Bon Clay

## Introduction

**Bon Clay** (or **Bon Kurei**) is an okama who befriended Luffy while in Baroque Works, eventually becoming an ally after the fall of Crocodile.

If you're looking for a character who lacks flaws, Bon will be your choice. He's all-around very strong in everything he does, and he does just about everything. Powerful projectiles, incredible assists, great jabs, insane unblockable, the tools on this character never end.

### **Pros & Cons**

+ Good HP for how versatile he is
+ Amazing jabs that are near lagless when lag cancelled
+ His unblockable is amazing and is also near lagless when lag cancelled
+ Fantastic projectile on his R+A
+ Very good anti air with R+X and can be difficult to punish
+ His aerials can mixup his landing very effectively
+ He can store his combo strings by holding down the button, causing him to spin
+ His X>X>A shoots a projectiles that causes confusion and is lagless when charged
+ Strong in Accel Heat because of his already great neutral
+ Good supports
+ Very powerful pressure because of how fast he can be with lag cancelling, can make it seem like escaping is impossible

- Not a ton of large or high damage combos, relies on pressure to get more damage
- Supers aren't that great
- Large hurtbox

## Movelist

OCTOPODS ARE DEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELICIOUS

### **Mod Edition Changes**

#### Nerfs

* His A>A>A now does knockback instead of large hitstun

## Supports

### **Mr. 4**

Area support. When you enter his range, Mr. 4 swings for a large amount of damage. Sometimes this can multi hit for some stupid damage for some reason. He also has a lot of HP, but still suffers from area support HP drain. Still, this guy is extremely annoying for opponents who are melee only. Mr. 4 reacts to anything the split second it gets near him. He will delete assists and the HP of anyone who gets near him. Bon Clay can use him to stall or to try and force the opponent into him, though he's much better at the former in matchups against melee characters.

### **Ms. Groundhog's Day**

Dash support. She's massively outclassed by the other two, but she's good for sandbagging. Her knockback makes her hard to work with.

### **Lassoo**

Ranged support. Shoots exploding baseballs that launch the opponent upwards with high hitstun, making some surprisingly good combos possible. This is usually Bon's best support because of the pressure and combos you can get from this thing. Be careful not to spawn it into danger because it has some low HP and the HP drain on ranged supports will eat this thing up.

## Strategy

### **Vanilla**

Bon's projectiles and his strong neutral make him pretty annoying, but in vanilla he can loop A+X>A>A against a wall for a long time until there's not enough hitstun to work with anymore. Besides that, his plan is mostly keeping his strong assists out and looking for an opportunity to pin the opponent against the wall while they have no meter.

### **Modded**

Just about the same game plan only now he wants the opponent against the wall for his crazy pressure. Once you lock someone against the wall, there's not a lot they can do to counter you besides some really strict timing on a counter attack. In order to get them to the wall in the first place, you'll have to open them up which should be easy with your broken projectiles and jabs. Your neutral tools are some of the strongest in the game so make sure to abuse them. Once you can connect with your projectile or your jabs, if you don't have them against the wall yet, your grabs are good for getting them there, though your directional grab is a lot worse at this. Once you have them against the wall, use your low endlag jabs and your unblockable to dish out as much damage as you can get away with. This will be your main source of damage if you can get them there. If you are having difficulties pinning them against the walls, your regular strings are still hit quite hard so just continue to play a strong neutral game. You also have quite a powerful juggle game with R+X alone. This move covers so much air that you can keep them in a juggle for quite a long time. If you're using Mr. 4, he's great if you're struggling with pressure yourself. You should always save a bar of meter so you can get yourself out of some pickles. With Lassoo, your main damage will no longer depend on pressure against walls. Lassoo can help you do some ridiculous loops on your opponent by doing an unblockable before they're able to tech the landing or doing an unblockable after the tech to send them right back into another baseball from Lassoo to continue doing massive damage.

## Matchups

### **General Information**

Characters with counters can make it difficult for Bon to go 100% pressure so his damage might not be as optimal as he'd want it to be. Bon has some great range on his moves but his hitboxes are also a little narrow, so small characters can simply walk to the side to dodge his attacks.

#### **Kuina**

She's small which can give Bon a few issues but other than that, he outclasses her. His R+X makes her good aerial game mean little. If he can start his pressure or Lassoo combos, she'll die really quick. Mr. 4 is also an option that gives her difficulty doing much because she can't risk taking a hit from him when her HP is so small.