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This page is going to serve as a non-comprehensive list of Zato counterplay that I personally find important. These are things that I think every player should do, and (some of) the things that indicate high-level matchup knowledge when I see people using them. The majority of this page’s content will consist of things Zato can play around — call these RPS points instead of “counterplay” if that bugs you, but the important thing is that you should represent these options to avoid Zato players steamrolling you without having to adapt their gameplan or move past layer 1 at all. Is mashing on Pierce guaranteed? No. But if you don’t do it, Zato is guaranteed to get much better pressure than he’s actually supposed to.
I’m going to indicate things that aren’t RPS by marking them in green. Everything else, just assume Zato has something he can do about it, even if it’s very weak.
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Also, I am not going to delve into the complexities of each of these scenarios, nor will I discuss character-specific exceptions. Some of this stuff is elsewhere on my site, but the point of this list is to serve as a starting point of things to keep in mind, not as a comprehensive anti-Zato bible. The expandable toggles will usually include a small amount of extra information, but won’t cover everything. If you are curious about something, feel free to ask me on Discord or Twitter.
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And to my fellow Zato players; blame only the upplayers for the existence of this. I wouldn’t have had to make this page if I wasn’t so thoroughly frustrated with people using their lack of Zato knowledge to pretend he’s better than he actually is.
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