♦

♦
Used By	Oswald
Attack Type	Special Move
Appears In	The King of Fighters series: The King of Fighters XI The King of Fighters XIV

Diamond (stylized as ♦) is one of Oswald's Special Moves in the King of Fighters series, first appearing in The King of Fighters XI.

Input

All appearances

+ or [x2] ( OK, KOF XIV only)

Description

Oswald does a diagonal inwards slash with a playing card that leaves behind a trail of other playing cards briefly. It can be followed-up with an extra input to have Oswald sweep-slash outwards and forward with another card-trailing slash that knocks down (said followup input can also be done or whiff or block).

Either ♦ input can be cancelled into either ♠, ♣ or ♥ up to 3 times in any sequence, even on whiff or block. The followup slash itself cannot be cancelled into any other Suit-based moves.

♦ with a slight startup, inflicts a crumple on grounded hit or a spin-out knockdown on air hit (latter also applies to EX ♦'s followup input). But like all Suit moves, ♦ can be used standalone or chained into from normals/command normals, though it is not cancel-able into off of any non- Suit moves.

Strategy

Normally to be used as a stationary poke or a combo extension without putting Oswald out of position (akin to his far standing ), Diamond works as both a solid stuffing tool and/or a juggle extender, including being used as an pseudo-lag cancel of sorts via advanced application of the lighter version. Diamond can even chain off of a Suit-chained Heart with enough proper distance from the wallbounce/counter wire into a juggle, though any juggle will always cause the second input to whiff.

While the EX version has notable benefits on hit, has its slow startup which prevents it from comboing properly off of an EX Spade (EX Diamond>EX Spade on the other hand, cancels the crumple), and even then it mainly only works off of EX Heart or EX Club as again, a juggle extender.

The second input also work as a frame trap, though it mainly functions as a combo ender.

Trivia

• In KOF XIV, the Ace of Diamonds is used for both slashes in his leading hand, while his following hand holds a 7 of Diamonds. Diamond suit cards of various kinds also trail both slashes as afterimages.