4. CoachiPeru - Super Diamond Laura2-1 (+61)
*Laura. My once least favourite chacter in the game, buffed in AE, only now 2nd least favorite next to Abigail, also buffed in AE. i can tell you it takes alot of will power to play this game with that sort of adversity. On top of that, this match was kind of laggy. This is due to the fact that i believe this guy lives in Utah and i live in BC.
Anyways, I barely lost the first game. i lost because i tried to meaty throw and lost to wakeup jab. i want to blame lag, but thats always a risk. If i were a better player, it wouldnt have been that close of a game. He caught me back dashing early on with a frame trap st.HP. This usually gets me 10x per match, but this slow pace training allowed me to keep my mind a bit clearer, in which i didnt do it again. He caught me with some loopable command grabs for sure, but i made sure to not quick rise in order to throw off his rhythm. It worked well as he would then just resort to another meaty and i was able to V-Reversal away. I made a wrong defensive DP decision in the first round, because he didnt actually try to mix me up. perhaps i need to react to the mixup attempt first before DPing. After he won the first game with wake up jab, he thought he could keep doing it, so from there i made sure to land all my meaties which definitely melted him, quickly. i won the 2nd game decisively, and i believe the 3rd game went similarly. I was able to use my dive kick at opportune times to catch him trying something. I also made sure to challenge is AA capabilities. This should be done at some point in every match. If they are focused on the ground, even the best players in the world sometimes arn't ready for it. A very real option that i need to view as an actual strategy element, more than a braindead/luck concept. I also made sure not to be too cowardly in neutral in order to implement that. I backed off as first like usual to see if they yolo in, and then simple did a little bit of st.MK pesturing. We need to remind ourselves that neutral poking is a tool to create an opening for us to get real pressure started some how. not to actually have games won on footsies. Another piece of self control i had, was being wary of her st.MK after a throw tech. I've definitely had a bad history of that hitting me alot, as i press a slower button such as st.MKFrom Replays:
Game 1
-After walking away from a light string, perhaps be ready to whiff punish st.MK or whatever followup button they do.
-ran into buffered st.HP
-backdash got counter hit by st.LP, st.HP string.
-wakeup jab after the CC got CH by st.LK, cr.MP xx EX clap, reset with st.HP into a walk forward throw attempt. he didnt cancel it and I EX DP'd nothing. Perhaps i can react to the cancel in the future.
-after a stun HP Bolt charge ender, she did dash up throw. I dont remember the advantage situation, but she followed it up with f.dash > command throw. Test to see if this can be defended with delay jab.
+ after getting hit by LP bolt charge, i did not backdash, and she went for the st.HP(-2) counter to that as well. i learned from before and stayed safe here.
-i back dashed away after blocking her st.HP. i should have challenged back.
note: as backdashing from strings becomes more popular in matchups even without command throws, these kinds of call outs will become more important.
-after blocking a st.MP, she pushed herself fairly far away. this made me feel safe, which she took advantage of and caught me with EX command grab(moves forward). perhaps, as usual, i should be back dashing after such a blocked normal.
+i delayed rise, and was able to v-reversal away.
-i wasnt reacting to her claps with EX drill from afar, or challening her st.HP xx EX clap strings.
-i keep trying to backdash after EX clap, but taht will get me CC'd just like after jab. It needs to be done after the st.HP and before the EX clap.
*lol she ran into my cr.HP xx VT activation, but the new scaling saved her.
-alas, lost to wakeup jab in the corner when i tried to throw, the new active frame doesnt help if i dont throw it out early enough
Game 2
-i tried to auto pilot a cr.MP, cr.MK stirng that he interupted with st.LK. he did this twice. need to confirm better.
+showed him my meaties for quick round as well as mixed it up with a delayed cr.MP in the middle
+made it look like i was going to try to play footsies with a few st.MKs, then threw in EX Dive kick to get the party started.
+after blocking her LP Elbow, i walked back and punished her delay throw tech.(although did not convert because i wasnt actually looking for it....)
-used f.throw when back would have stunned.
+Dive kicked my way out of the corner. success rate on this is insane.
note; won this game pretty convincigly, so not too big of an error list
Game 3
-gave up the momentum to the same block string he challenged last game. After a bit of patient blocking, he dashed up command throw. i should have been more ready for that as there is not much else to look for once they have pushed themselves away.
-successfully defended the fake throw loop with delay jab
-did too shallow of a high dive kick, leaving me punishable.
-got hit by cr.LK, cr.LP trying to walk away from bolt charge. walking away on hit doesnt accomplish anything, dont do it.
-he canceled the cr.LP in V-Skill dash and command threw me. hard to be ready for that, but perhaps remembering he can do that will be important so i can delay jab if i think he might try it.
-still letting him clap from mid screen. not a big deal as they are short ones so he cant follow them in. maybe he is trying to bait a late reaction from me.
-whiffed EX dive kick. i had a big life deficit so i had to make a move, but it was not a clean one.
+was able to get something started when his lack of patience brought him in. He didn't convert off my whiffed dive kick very well, so perhaps that frustrated him or gave him a sense of moment. either way, he dashed in and had me block a LP bolt charge. I used the advantage to block string and land a cr.HP into VT.
+showed him my st.HK throw bait crush counter card in this final game to secure the comeback and first round. an effective time to draw it.
+hoping he had a sense of impatience or frustration, i buffered st.MK hoping he'd run into it, and did.
-he did another simple st.LK, st.MP block string and then f.dash > command throw. i will need to be more ready for these when he creates a gap, and assume he wants to keep the pressure. resorting to backdash automatically to gain extra space is not a bad idea to regularly do here.
-jumped in with st.HK but traded with his clap. jumping in with st.MP here might have ensured you a clean hit
+altho it worked out, he was unable to find a good way to activate his VT in the end of the round. i was playing a bit elusive, but that isnt what ihad in mind, when it absolultely should have been. i should have been thinking more about "what does he have to or want to do to make a comeback". i need to remember to analyze that at the end of rounds.
Conclusion:
I was fairly comfortable in this set. outside of a couple rounds i felt i was in most of the control. He wasn't too crazy with the set ups, so that helped me, too. Or maybe that's just Laura's 3 bar VT kickin in, that she didnt have the chance to rock it as easliy as she usually does. hmmm
My defense vs laura is still not very clean. i need to be more hyper aware of the buttons she is pressing and wants to press. The big one is stopping her from canceling into EX clap block pressure after st.HP. i have 2 ways to avoid it and always forget to.
Training mode:
HP Bolt charge > f.Dash > CMD Throw
-a delay jab does not work here, but reacting with a reversal jab does.
5. Fchampryan - Master Dhalsim2-0 (+290)
*a pretty big win. Dhalsim used to be a matchup i was hopeless in, but i studied it a fair bit and since then have beaten practically every dhalsim since. Despite the 2-0, they were kind of close games. he won a round each time. A big thing i made sure to do was shut down his ia.Gale+throwtech that he is kind of famous for. I did that by using st.HK instead of shimmy for throw baits. He was also testing out his new VT2. it seems to be some floating fireball that bounces up n down and at one point it just sat there...so not sure how that works, yet. Another nice thing i was able to do, was block a normal or hit, and use his negative advantage to throw out a st.HP buffered into SA to catch his next button. It's tech i know but not always easy to land. Glad to see it show up for me here. I also got baited by a fireball set up that looks like i can wake up and SA him, but he recovers in time. i fell for it the first time, but not the second.From Replays:
Game 1
-Something I don't do enough that i know about, is after Dhalsim pushes himself away, he wants to dive kick back in. I can bait that with a neutral jump. Taking that tool away from him would be huge in what mediocre pressure already has.
-After air gale, it seems he can safely throw a LP Fireball. I got baited the first time. He does it again after a MP yoga flame but i dont challenge.
-didnt do optimal combo ender for stun
Game 2
+instead of challenging his V-Skill float with DP that can be baited by a teleport, i did so with st.HK which successfully CC'd him out of the air. I failed to follow up, though because i was unfamiliar with the situation.
+i seemed to be jumping quite often when i recover from the air. Although this is a fairly autopilot response, it seemed to work well against him as he would throw out a heavy button that was a bit too slow to stop me from doing it, allowing me a way in multiple times through both games. Perhaps paying attention to their actions after air resets will be important.
+He seemd to try to use his VT2 as a bouncing wall they he would float behind. being full screen away, its very slow moving that i didnt really have to be worried about it. I basically waited until he got closer and whiffed a gale behind it to do EX Drill right through both and knock him out of the air.
+He got in and i challenged his string with EX DP. something i havent done yet.
+after blocking a st.MK, i threw out st.HP buffered into SA that whiff punished his next st.MK
+i did my hooligan okidok which corners myself...usually not great but this time i payed off, making his AA jab whiff and me hitting and EX drilling my way back out of the corner.
- tried to walk forward st.MP for more damage to kill but doesnt work after st.HP activation, FOOL!
~tried to whiff punish his st.HK with VT drill...i guess it was late but worked out because it CH him.
+Far range LK drill is another option you can use after blocking his normals. it has so many active frames that it doesnt matter wtf he presses after. far range can be fairly safe from dhalsim.
+after knocking him out of the air with a st.MK, i went for dive kick. this whiff punished his autopilot st.MK on recovery
+when he escaped the corner i chased down his teleport on reaction with EX SA.
Conclusion:
-it was probably a rusty fchamp, but im not going to take anything away from myself. It's definitely a matchup ive been doing better in this last half year, and i havnt been playing much this last half year either. I felt aware of all of his options at most times, and had my answers ready. I am not totally sure if i had any big flaws in that match, as when you win its harder to diagnose. He did win 2 rounds however so there definitely was some mistakes. I Suppose it would be to neutral jump dive kicks and EX drill through fireball strings more.
This took a few hours just to do 5 sets. I didn't dive into my first one because there wasnt much to it. My main goal is to do at least 5 of these a day, up to 10. I am not totally sure if this will be 100% of my ranked done like this or not, but atm i am considering it to be that way, and any other practice will come from battle lounge sets.
Ending LP: 24883 (+367) Ideally i'd like +250 a day, but i'm not going to cling to that of course. If i get too clingly about points, it just makes it that much harder to stay on track when i lose them. Almost got my Ultra Diamond back!
This post was edited by nate321 on Jan 16 2018 08:32pm