AE Matchup Discussion: Abel, Adon, Akuma, Balrog, Blanka

slide for sure. slide everything. if only s.HP could slide forward!

My reactions are still just ass then, no surprise there!

grind grind grind grind

Got put into losers by Adon this weekend. at my own event no less! https://www.facebook.com/events/467256799971967/ haha.

Was a good day for the northern UK scene though. Yes it does exist. :wink:

I find if Adon plays patiently as hell, like with a ton of characters he almost always comes out on top. Every time this dude got a life lead on me I wanted to kill myself. I don’t know what to do in those situations other than try to xx hop or ball my way in. Both of which he was always ready for.

1-2 last round last decision at least, but in the end I was feeling highly outplayed.

But I suppose that’s half the whole game isn’t really, when offense carries so much risk you’ve got to be able to take and hold that lead.

this might sound kind of dumb, but walk forward when your opponent has the lifelead and force them to hit buttons to push you back.

Then you can setup whiff punish situations or eventually force them to block something.

I think that’s what I’m unconsciously starting to try more. It’s a weird idea to get your head around because you’re not so much trying to ‘get in’ so much as make them try to stop you getting in. Good advice. I never actively thought about how to be aggressive that way.

Thanks dude.

No problem.

Switching gears is what blanka does best. Same for my alts; They’re charge/defensive chars too. For those few seconds spent charging, in solitude, it pays to have a deep breath… look at the opponent, their fickle ‘gameplan’.

I’d hate to have to be fireballing constantly like shotos or looking busy like command-normal players. You learn hardly anything while zoning, and what you do actually learn is only by forcing them to react to a big flashing thing coming across the screen.

The very fact blanka is ‘apparently’ doing nothing scares people imo. I’d say I’ve jumped less than a dozen times this week.

Although, that said I’ve not played against much Adons. I can shut down Jaguar teeth on reaction, and safe jump him all day,but… from there on in it’s a blank.

Make a come back with Blanka is no doubt for me one of the hardest things to do, if not impossible.

He has nothing to make a real offense, elec doesn’t scare and his overhead is so slow, it’s not ST, he doesnt have a broken throw or jumping kick and you just can’t jump in SFIV so… have life disadvantage is often synonymous with round/match’s defeat.

in fact, I find this game so boring and empty now.

yes the life of blanka can be boring. you cannot rushdown. you watch these cammy players or akuma and you’re like … wow, higher tier, looks fun, lots of offense… why am i playing blanka?

We all have our reasons, but i do know the feel bro. I also get bored with him sometimes because the best way to play him is to hold downback and run the clock out. But i also enjoy it sometimes. Depends on the day. I think since the game has been out for so long that we all should be playing alts for fun.

Yeah like all you guys said I’m starting to realize the only way to win against good players is to play patient. Blanka can so ham in certain matchups, but its mainly against characters with very poor reversal options.

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I love playing with Balrog since SFII, especially after a few beers. Beerog is an angry drunk. The hardest part is seeing how long you can hold ppp and just play with LK torpedoes / rush uppers and jumping LK (thumb). Jump in ppp, cr.lk, turn punch works surprisingly well sometimes. I have no idea how to play holding kkk.

Sorry for the OT.

Yes it’s exactly this, glad to see i’m not the only one to have this feeling with Blanka guys.

I know this character is defensive but sometimes, it’s so frustrating when you only want to going nuts so you try unsafe stuff like normals xx hop or scrub’s jumps or random slide…

I need some help with the mirror match, not used to having shenanigans done on me. What would be some good options to stop the wake up game, how to properly punish blocked/whiffed balls, and to deal with aggressive blankas?

Shows a lot of what I’m talking about here, remember this is a yellow bar connection and I’m still able to do the things I need to do pretty effectively.

Wakeup game you can do the f.throw, whiff mp ball, j.hk safejump, or if Blanka doesn’t have u1 stocked just ignore it. Force him to burn the bar, he doesn’t get any positioning off of ex upball and it does minimal damage. Meaty Elec/reaction st.hp will beat ex rainbow so it’s easy to deal with.

For blocked balls you want to use walk forward > slide to punish other than for ex upball. Ex upball can be punished with dash forward into a combo, or dash sweep which leads to better setup options.

For whiff balls I suggest learning to sweep them, an if you don’t have the reactions for that st.hk. For hops just learn to do jab buffers and jab xx ball him for being so aggressive.

Just keep calm, maintain spacing and don’t worry about the occasional random slide or w/e

Vs blanka
The tips provided by Veserius is great here a few more pointers.

I’ve read that the general strategy is to be lame and wait for blanka to “fuck up” however I think this is an old strategy because after awhile people stop messing up you’re assuming your blanka opponent is your typical blanka scrub. Basically this is the same problem other characters describe blanka match up they just talk about how to punish ball.

In general I feel this match up depends a lot on what your opponent is doing and what are they trying to counter.

In general you want to figure out your opponent tendency if they prefer to be more aggressive or more lame.

If they are being lame your goal is to slowly move them into the corner. You can do that by cautiously walking forward and blocking. Keep in mind it’s not easy for them to score a safe ball if you moving at different distance. If you’re close enough you can start doing jabs to push him back mix with other footsie tools. The moment they start hitting buttons it means they are vulnerable to get while if they don’t they just get pushed into the corner. So it’s really about reading your opponent tendencies.

If that doesn’t work you can always sit back and build meter with electricity.

Recognizing when your opponent have charge and not will let you know your options. If they don’t have down charge or they just blocked a high move its not easy for blanka to anti air his own jump options (j.hk, j.mk, j.mp, j.hp). If he doesn’t have back charge it means he’s vulnerable to focus and his only option is to hop over and throw so if you can read him possibly doing that there’s multiple ways to counter it.

Safe slide is a decent option because it pushes him back and he really got no answer against it unless he knows it’s coming and FA you.

Everything else is covered by veserius and its solid blanka mirror advice.