Style:
Mixups

Difficulty:
Advanced

Summary:
Looping stances requires good character knowledge on to use effectively (or fight against) and contains great pressure and damage. Stance loops also limit his offensive and defensive options.

Description:
The other series pirate is much less dead and has much bigger hair compared to Cervantes. As with past games he constantly shifts between various stances and can transition between them based on attacks, generating great pressure while cycling between various stance mixups. He also has some great one-off pokes such as the fast tech crouching 6A+B and a great range 2A, and can land a hit and start combos with some long range attacks as well. Fighting against him requires good understanding of his stances and various options. When he is looping between stances he loses the ability to perform standard defensive options (ducking, stepping, guarding) and must defend with aGIs or evasive attacks, making him especially vulnerable on whiff or when the opponent makes a strong read. 

Strengths:

  1. diverse range and tools
  2. plenty of counter-hit and other combo starters
  3. constant pressure with stances

Weaknesses:

  1. high level of knowledge required to play, using all stances and transitions
  2. limited options when in stance
  3. lackluster oki game against grounded opponents

Unique mechanic: 
Maxi has the ability to cycle through his stances with Pure Soul Loops (PSL). After performing a move that ends in a stance, holding forward will enter PSL1, while holding backward enters PSL2. During this transition, Maxi can auto-GI all mid and high horizontal attacks, excluding break attacks and unblockables (NOTE: The auto-GI is only active during the first stance transition). While Maxi is in any stance, pressing B+K will enter the Neutral Guard stance, which can auto-GI mid and high vertical attacks, with the same exception for break attacks and unblockables. Maxi can also spend meter to go into Heaven’s Guard, which has Resist Impact properties and will even parry enemies attacking him from behind.
After transitioning from once stance to another and doing performing an attack, one star is added to the Seven Stars Rebirth sequence, indicated by the constellation that appears briefly on screen. When a move is performed in this manner from every stance, Maxi activates Seven Stars Rebirth, gaining access to new moves.

Original text courtesy of: uwucos