Everything You Need To Know
About The Musty Flick
Today I’ll cover the Musty Flick. I’ll explain what it is. I’ll teach you how to align the shots and land them yourself. I’ll teach you when they’re most useful and how important they are to learn.
Heck, I’ll even splash a little history lesson on who invented the Musty Flick.
Spoiler alert: It wasn’t Musty.
But he was still the first person to bring the flick to public attention. He was also the first non-professional player to land the flicks consistently.
By the time we’re through, you’ll be able to slather that fancy Dijon Mustard on everything.
What Is A Musty Flick?
We’ll start with the vehicle motion. In the simplest sense, a Musty Flick is a backflip that sends your vehicle flying forward. Yeah. It sounds a bit nonsensical, but Rocket League physics are full of surprises.
Let’s dig a little deeper.
When the nose of your car rests perpendicular to the ground, the vehicle changes its orientation. Your vehicle behaves like it’s upside down.
You can perform Musty Flicks from many angles, as long as you’ve surpassed the ninety-degree angle requirement between the nose of your car and the ground.
Similarly, when your nose points to the stadium ceiling, your car reverts to forward orientation. Add a pinch of directional air roll – and you have yourself a sparkly new inverted musty flick to fiddle around with, too.
Now that we grasp the motions, let’s tackle how a Musty Flick affects the ball. No sense in learning a mechanic without understanding its applications, right?
Musty Flicks capitalize on a unique trajectory – if your vehicle contacts the ball’s underside. It forms a low-hanging upward arc with breakneck forward momentum.
Like most touches, a Musty Flick is best served while catching the ball on its upward arc. We call those moments volleys and half-volleys.
Although, the lengthy scoop-like motion of this flick makes it powerful on a ball with downward momentum, too. This flick provides a prolonged contact period with the ball, granting more force than a traditional tap.
Timing is critical, especially if you’re aiming to Musty Flick a plummeting ball. You’ll need to align your car with the ball’s height for at least a half second to succeed.
In most ranks, you’ll find a standard diagonal flip more consistent. Of course, I’m not your mom or whatever. You’re here to land some sick Musty’s, so let’s cue the motivational video:
Initial Training Routine:
The initial setup touch is the most critical piece of the puzzle. That’s a mantra true of mastering any advanced mechanic.
It’s useless knowing how to slam trick shots you can’t set up, after all.
The Musty Flick requires an ultra-precise upward lob that mirrors your vehicle’s speed. Matching the ball’s speed might not look impressive, but it’s still a time-consuming hurdle.
During your initial training session, I want you to practice maintaining a bounce dribble. Ignore the flick for a moment.
Pop the ball up, let it hit the ground, then hit it again the moment it begins to bounce back up. Exploiting half volleys is half the battle to mastering Musty Flicks.
Keep practicing the bounce dribble until you can make five consecutive hits without cooking boost to reach the ball.
You’ll quickly discover that timing is crucial. You may need to read the ball in ways you aren’t accustomed to yet.
I know. It’s like listening to your dentist tell you that you need to floss. But it’s true. You need to floss. Sorry.
Mastering the bounce dribble is mastering the swiss army knife of competitive Rocket League, though. It is a wise use of your time, I promise.
The Two Major Setup Methods
New players commonly tilt their cars forward to set up the flick. This works fine. But it often forces you to feather your boost to speed up the preparation stage.
That can be a lot for a new player to manage.
Instead, I recommend popping the ball up with a bounce dribble and tilting your car straight back. Before flicking, use your airborne nose to make gentle contact with the ball. Aim this extra touch around the forty-five-degree mark of your backward somersault. This aligns the ball’s trajectory to yours.
Continue your backward somersault until your vehicle tucks beneath the ball and then commit to your forward backflip. You’ll land the signature scoop when the musty flick originates from your spoiler.
Here’s a visual slideshow of a reverse musty flick I landed in the most obnoxious Twinzer I could decorate:
Why do I recommend this setup method?
It’s easier to abandon. If you can’t match timing with the ball or your finger slips on the analog stick, your car’s backward motion functions as a dependable fake.
In these scenarios, upon landing, you can still maintain possession over the ball. If an opponent challenges before you land, you’ll mirror the ball’s movement well enough to make a favorable chip in most instances.
There’s one other reason to practice backward Musty Flicks over the standard version. Versatility.
You can perform them off of walls or off of the ceiling. Let that sink in a moment.
What Are Common Mistakes When Attempting Musty Flicks?
- The player jumps too low to the ground to afford themself the time required to set up. Pretty simple to notice if you’re doing this. The nose of your vehicle will drag along the ground. In some cases, you may whiff beneath the ball.
- The player often panics and flips early, lunging their car backward. This one’s pretty obvious to recognize as well. The remedy here is to start popping the ball higher and focus on getting those high jumps consistent enough to quit panicking.
- The forward or backward inputs need to be precise. Even a marginal shift left or right will create awkward flips and typically whiff the ball entirely. If you notice any tilt in your lift, try to correct it with early air roll inputs. Sometimes this isn’t possible, and the best course of action is to try and catch the ball on your hood when landing.
- The Vehicle needs to align directly with the center of the ball throughout the setup. Pro tip: Be mindful of your initial jump. Contact with the ball can offset your vehicle’s trajectory when hit with your corner hitbox (rather than centered.) If you anticipate an indirect hit, air roll before jumping to try and correct this.
- If you failed step 3 or 4, you can’t brute force your way through the flick. You need to be quick on your feet and improvise a new line of attack. There is no single correct answer. Good intuition is what makes high-ranked players shine.
- If setting up from a full-carry dribble, you often need to launch the ball from the hood of your car. Don’t hesitate! Dribbling from the hood poses an immediate risk of the ball rolling off.
Advanced Musty Flick Techniques - Recovery:
Skilled Rocket League players scuff Musty Flick setups all the time. The pros’ secret? They have back-up plans when things go awry.
The most versatile plan B is a well-timed flip cancel.
After hundreds of repetitions of failed Musty Flicks, you’ll begin to notice some negative trends earlier and earlier. Recognizing a failure before it occurs is half the battle, so props to you.
Now we just need to figure out a way to fix it, and that’s where a coach comes in handy. Well, coach says to practice flip canceling instead of spamming that reset shot button.
The Musty Flick has a remarkable flip cancel recovery – especially the reverse somersault version. Flip canceling extends your reach in cases where you lob the ball too far forward.
What makes Musty Flick flip cancels so special?
You can use your boost pretty liberally after smashing that analog stick forward.
From there, your options look pretty good. You can often catch the ball for a dribble or extra touch, you can sometimes find flip resets.
Give it a try. You’ll see what I mean.
Fine-tuning your boost management is critical for BOTH musty setups. A player with a comfortable understanding of feathering boost (and overall car control) hits these shots more consistently than someone who ignores boost while fiddling with other button inputs.
If you find yourself hovering too close to the ball, there’s an app for that!
The early stages of a reverse Musty Flick bear a striking resemblance to the early stages of a tornado flick or a ground-to-air dribble. The main difference for Musty Flicks is that you want to space yourself a little further back from the ball.
I bet you can figure out where this leads:
If you haven’t distanced yourself enough from the ball, shift gears to a tornado flick or air dribble. You’ve already aligned the ideal launch.
Likewise, if you’re attempting the more traditional downward Musty Flick, you’re in a similar position to set up a ground pinch or a funky turtle flick. Give them a try.
Just don’t obsess with the thought of executing a Musty Flick. It’s more important that you do something proactive. Don’t whiff a ball you already know you’re going to whiff. That’s the attitude that keeps you locked in Plat.
Advanced Musty Flick Techniques - Wall Setup Tips:
- The best setup location is from your back corner boost pad while clearing the ball.
- Don’t drive completely vertical up the wall. This trick shot is more horizontally-oriented than others.
- Aim to hit your first tap off the wall the moment you reach the outer crease in the wall’s corner.
- Hit the ball high. 3-8 car lengths from the ceiling buys your setups the most time.
- Don’t immediately jump from the wall. Give yourself time to drive alongside the ball. You’ll pick up more momentum with your wheels planted on a surface. That conserves boost and makes your plays more consistent.
- Time your flick for the apex of the pop. That’s the moment the ball loses its upward momentum, but hasn’t started falling yet.
- As you’re performing the musty, boost the moment your nose is pointing toward the ceiling. This generates higher/faster pops and opens up double tap possibilities.
How Important Is It to Learn A Musty Flick?
Practicality Rating: C-
[Look, I'm Just Posting The Stuff Y'all Will Actually Read About]
Most of you already know it’s impractical, but a few low-ranked players fumble into this article, so I wanted to make it clear.
Musty Flicks take forever to line up. The signature trajectory of a well-timed Musty Flick is difficult to defend, but it comes at a cost.
There are also hefty recovery costs to overcome, even for an expert. With a perfect air roll and powerslide landing, a player is often committed to lunging forward into No Man’s Land.
Like inside the enemies net…
Or worse… smacking straight into a wall.
Why learn it at all, then right?
Well… Sometimes we hit those ranks where we feel like we’re in a rut. It’s easy to feel like we’ve plateaued or otherwise peaked. Practicing Musty Flicks can be a breath of new life to your training sessions. We’ve all been there. You’ll come out stronger on the other side.
The Musty Flick can be a great surprise mechanic to master, but don’t expect to use it often!
What’s The Story Behind The Musty Flick?
The Musty Flick was the first (and most popular) of many mechanics to be “discovered” and popularized on Reddit.
Wyatt, a Redditor by the username amustycow, posted daily clips of the flick for months until Redditors worldwide dubbed the flick in his name, practically in unison. Musty utilized his internet fame to become one of the most-followed YouTubers in the Rocket League community. He’s even Surpassed SunlessKhan, the man who produced our most referenced tutorial series in the game’s history.
There is evidence of Kuxir performing Musty Flicks before their namesake, but he’s a soft-spoken professional who keeps to himself. If you’re interested in a hefty serving of side-drama, I have some to share!
John MacDonald (Alias: Johnnyboi_i) is a prominent RLCS announcer who refuses to credit the flick to Musty.
He’s unwavering in his efforts to continue twisting his tongue to call it the “Forward-Backflip Flick” which has been the subject of speculation for years.
Johnnyboi_i claims that it sounds more professional, but that isn’t enough to silence the conspirators.
It doesn’t help Musty’s case that he’s now receiving credit for Linkuru’s Speed Flip, too. Musty’s speed flip kick-off tutorial stormed the internet by surprise, eclipsing Link’s findings entirely. I suppose it’s inevitable for an internet superstar. I doubt it was intentional. Sorry, Link. You snooze, you lose… I guess.
I guess the side-lesson here is to spam social media with clips begging for people to name tricks for you before it’s too late. But please don’t. I’ve seen enough “OMG NEW MECHANIC: 180-No-Flick Flick Double Fake Doomsee Whiff-tacular Goalie Pinch” content for one lifetime.
Anyway, enough with the history lesson. Get out there and practice your new mechanic!