Akuma write up
[details=Spoiler]]Akuma……where to start? OK, this will just be a brief glance at how you should be approaching this match-up, I don’t want to go to in-depth since I could be writing for days and days on little intricate details to look out for…. I won’t, I’m just going to give you a basic understanding on how it’s played.
To start off, my first goal is simple, force them to play on the ground. This is a lot easier than it sounds. You don’t want him to be jumping all over the place throwing fireballs or demon flipping, so simplest way to kill this is to jump forward hp when ever you see him jump forward. Simple, this kills both jump forward fireball and random flips. If he’s just jumping back throwing shit though, let him, just walk/roll his ass to the corner, he has no good escape options while there.
Alright, now that that’s done, let’s talk about the ground game. This is an area, or better yet, THE area where most Abels struggle with….and honestly, I don’t see it that threatening myself, it’s actually where I feel most comfortable. He has a couple really solid tools, st.hk, sweep, st.lp, cr.mp, fireballs…these are complimented by his stupid-fast walk speed. However, you have a tool that beats all of these….block.
If there’s one thing out of this whole damn write-up you take with you, it should be that, block. He doesn’t have a command throw, he doesn’t have crazy ambiguous cross-ups he can do while you’re standing… no, he has a couple really solid pokes, that if he lands them, will net him a knockdown and will probably lose you the round (or at least 40-60% of your health). So, lets say you are both dancing around his sweep range… he goes for st.hk, you block it… what do you do? Block the follow up. He’s usually too far away to throw after that, and if he actually does want to throw, he has to walk his ass up to you and attempt it, you have like a million tools to deal with this. Most Akumas like doing a cr.mp after st.hk to keep you on block stun and to continue their pressure. Block. “Well, how the fuck am I supposed to beat him if I’m just holding back the whole time?”
You’re not holding back the whole time, you are just avoiding getting hit with silly shit. You can start your own offense by keeping him out of sweep range with st.lk and just walking forward, stuffing his sweeps with st.lk. At this range, you are susceptible to eating a st.hk, so be ready and punish with a cr.mk xx mp.cod OR st.lp CH step kick. The latter is if you want to style, but is hard as shit as not only does it need to hit as a CH, but the combo into step kick is 1 frame. Honestly at this range though, you should be attacking 30% of the time and blocking the other 70%. Just attack when either whiff punishing or when you feel comfortable to do so, also, try to keep on walking forward while blocking his shit on reaction, this is probably your number 1 goal here, since you can kill him if you get him there. This isn’t a matchup where you can just go in, balls to the wall, and expect to win (I think this is why a lot of Abels have trouble here). You have to pick your battles, and pick them carefully.
Whiff punish EVERYTHING, if he sweeps, sweep him back, if he whiffs a st.hk, step kick or cr.mk his ass. This is a huge part of this match, as you can potentially win off that one whiff punish that lead to a knockdown. Keep an eye out for his pokes, and don’t let him get away with shit, you HAVE to be on point with your punishes, as you never know when you will get that opportunity again. Of course, once you get him scared of throwing random shit out there, you can run your standard pressure (step kick, dash up, sweep, etc).
On knockdown, he’s probably the most annoying character to deal with. He truly has the best wake-up in the game, but it doesn’t matter, as we only need to guess once or twice and we win. The mixup you will apply honestly depends on what type of knockdown you scored, but you are going to bait teleport pretty much the same way with all his knockdowns. To catch back teleports, either RH roll or jump forward into step kick, to catch forward teleports, jump back into step kick. Easy, but you have to guess which side he’s going to teleport correctly, and there’s also that chance that he doesn’t teleport all together, and just stays in place or SRK’s……or backdashes….or anythinge else. Honestly, you’re not going to win this match-up by guessing on his wakeup, like against everyone else. Sure, if you guess right, that’s great! You get like 40-50% off his health, but don’t depend on this to win, most of your damage is going to come from punishing shit he does or from your standard ticks into TT or punishing escape attempts.
OK, now for the hardest part….when YOU get knocked down. This is honestly the only part of the match-up I hate… You could honestly lose your entire life bar off one sweep…but only if they have the “true” (Tokido) vortex down. The “true” vortex consists of 2 basic options that fuck you up, but they can elaborate and throw in other shit once you’re conditioned to look for those options. The two options I’m talking about are either DF palm OS demon/throw/sweep, or DF throw. They sound pretty simple, but it’s more fucked up than you think. First of all, if the Akuma knows how to OS demon, don’t, I repeat, DON’T backdash or ex.roll, as that’s a easy way to lose half of your life. If you think they are going to throw, just either jump back hp or lk, or neutral jump hk. Of course, he can do palm to beat those options, but I rather eat palm than a fucking demon. If you think he will do palm though, you can do a late EX.TT to catch him while he’s going down, and it’s a 100% sure punish. He can do DF dive kick instead to fuck all of that up… but that’s why I think you get raped on wakeup, the options you have only cover individual options he does, you don’t have a “get the fuck out of everything free” card, you have to guess. That’s why I rather just block… sure, it loses to throw, but at least you show them that they HAVE to go for throw, since all their other shit isn’t working. Once they HAVE to throw, it makes it a lot easier to escape. Of course it’s still a guess, so this can also easily get you fucked up.
Once you do block or get out of the vortex, the whole thing is reset, go back to your standard ground game while trying to avoid that other knockdown, since you might not guess right this time. Keep looking out for random forward jump FB’s or DF, and stuff properly. Don’t let them abuse silly shit like st.hk over and over…punish correctly.
Shit, well these are pretty much the basics of this match-up, and it took me forever to write out…. Like I said, I know this match-up very well, so I could keep on writing on forever….but I won’t, for my sake.[/details]
I take zero credit for this. This is all belongs to Gustavo. I just thought it belonged in this thread.
