one more time. SA2 is a threat, that’s for sure. but the threat pretty much goes away when you avoid her half of the screen… and it’s not that hard to do.
and for what Valle said, i could say the opposite: makoto/gouki was 5/5 on the last “official” char ranking. anyway.
A good Gouki player wont allow Makoto do land a karakusa>SA2 period. Any of the JP Gouki’s I played (Uraken, Yukiotoko, Match, Jiro) as well as PaulT here in Aus dont allow you to get anywhere near them. As el_diablo said as long Gouki makes an effort to avoid her half of the screen a top Gouki player can really give Makoto troubles and in effect neutralize the advantage that SA2 gives Makoto over Gouki. So whilst SA2 can get you wins for sure it is not the deciding factor… an agile and mobile Gouki can really make Makoto’s life difficult.
To summarise… SA2 basically means nothing against top tier Gouki players as your chances of landing it are slim at best. You will need to find other ways to win if using Makoto. I definetly agree that this is an even match up, 5/5 as the Japanese match up chart suggests. It can go either way.
What chart are you guys referring to? The one linked in general strategy shows 6/4.
I am pretty sure the one in general strategy (couldn’t find it BTW) is the one released in an issue of ARCADIA magazine about 1 year ago. I am quite sure that a newer and updated revision was released around 6 month ago in either ARCADIA or TOUGEKI-DAMASHII (SBO Spirits). Maybe someone else here has the updated match up chart? I could have sworn my friend Akira here had one recently when he was in Sydney. Or perhaps that was gotten from one of the Japanese 3s forums that all the top players there visit and discuss strats etc, etc… I don’t know.
Anyway 5/5, 5.5/4.5 or 6/4… doesn’t really make that much difference. The point remains Makoto vs Gouki is a fairly even match up at a high level.
I agree with sa II being a less of a factor against gouki at the higher levels of play.
Once you learn to effectively zone mak and contain her you will see its not an un-winnable match up.
I personally put/leave the match up at 6-4 mak because mak has more choices in how to fight the match then gouki.
While mak can choose to play the match rd or turtle, more likely switching between the two at any time, while gouki’s option of how to play the match is more limited to keep away. I’m not saying that is a bad thing he has the tools just more limited.
El Diablo- Just out of curiosity why do you think ryu cr strong help makes him go even against mak?
Also if anyone has that more to date match list Id also like to see it
actually, it’s all shotos c.mp that helps. excellent ground control against makoto(stops many of her grounded normals cold, fast enough to stop her dashes if she randomly want to dash from afar, cancellable, hard to punish if whiffed… the list goes on), it doesn’t matter if she is close or far. you can pretty much spam it if she’s not right in your face. I think it’s best used with Ryu because when cancelled into ex hado, you deal good damage while staying safe if she has the time to guard after a dash or something. pure no brain.
and gouki is reduced to keepaway only if she uses SA2. you can go back to normal(well, not exactly but still) if she uses SA1.
Match Ups Part 1 of 2:
URIEN: Akuma has an advantage on Urien, because Urien has very little response to Akuma’s corner pressure, particularly hurricane kicks, allowing you to throw them into your mixup without much fear. Although if you get predictable and do it all the time, it’d still be a problem (like anything else). I wouldn’t worry too much about red parrying as you can mix up medium and roundhouse hurricane to throw them off.
Another point is that if Urien throws an Aegis Reflector on Akuma, he can just teleport out of it and laugh at Urien.
But if something goes wrong, Urien can mess you up badly for one mistake, so it’s not like it’s an easy fight. But the advantage definitely goes to Akuma for that one.
NECRO: If he is SA1 - do NOT jump in when he has meter. In fact, don’t even whiff pokes when you are about 1/3rd screen distance away. Never let him jump in on you. Anti air him in whatever way you can. Necro players do not usually take to the air looking for parries so in the long run you will be fine. Red parrying the tornado hook is good, but risky.
You HAVE to learn to tech his throw on reaction. I know its hard and almost impossible, but at least have SOME idea of how to do it if you have to. You can parry his long range pokes which will start to come out when you stay away from him (usually when he has SA1 ready). Otherwise spend more than 60% of the time air borne.
In the midst of your crazy rushdown (or his), dont forget that you can cross him in the corner.
ALEX: Turtle. Air fireballs galore. Do NOT spam hurricanes. If he gets close and you want to jump out, always jump with an instant option air parry. Japs do this all the time anyway so you should too. Alex is looking to land a few strong hits to stun you, and this is usually done through calculated risks - turtling is usually the best answer for risky players. Alex’s small jump is confusing, but there are some ways around it - but you need to have fast and ready reflexes.
Ideally - dash under. Otherwise, do the same thing I mentioned earlier about jumping up with an instant parry. Or DEEP hp shoryu - best to do this from a crouch position. If unsure, teleport when he jumps in - he most probably will not have any charge to EX dash you. Oh and spam early demon flip xx divekicks because I LOVE how they cross Alex in the weirdest ways.
YANG: Yang is fairly difficult to be juggled and can punish akuma bad so I don’t play super aggressive against him. I generally try to get a knockdown then abuse c.mk > mk/hk hurricane or f.mp. Just be careful cause almost all of akumas whiffed moves can be punished with c.lp > mantis.
DUDLEY: In general, play a mean ground game against Duds. He’s one of the few characters that can give you trouble in the air for some reason :xeye: Demon flip grabs as surprise tactics. Never do hurricanes when he has super, spam them otherwise (unless they can red parry). Always look to anti air him when he jumps in. Teleport away when he’s in close - you might eat a super if they react fast enough, but it might be better than the UOH link into super that you would have eaten instead.
Apart from c. forward, the worst case scenario is twds + fierce which is a -3 on block. even then, you’d have to execute a reversal super ala reversing the Shoto c. forward. theoretically, you can use Akuma’s forward/roundhouse Tatsu to reversal punish twds + fierce, but that’s it. all the other normals you listed recover faster than it takes for the Tatsus to come out. or just as fast. Akuma’s fierce Shoryu technically is fast enough to punish other normals as it comes out in 1 frame, but it lacks range for most and you’d have to be KYSGprogrammedstick fast.
One him with your standing mp. The far version actually stuffs most of Dudley’s ground pokes fairly well. There will be the odd occasion where it doesn’t, but hopefully you’ll have Dudley on the backfoot with your mp. The only other poke you should use in close zoning is cr.mk. The point here is to frustrate Dudley on the ground - his main game against Shotos involves jumping in as far as I knew. Use far mp as an anti air as well. ALWAYS try and anti-air Dudley because he gets a ridiculous advantage if he manages to get in close. Far mp is good because you can cancel into other specials before Dudley can hit you. This sets up a whole new avenue of mind games which, hopefully, you should be in control of. If his jump in is very close i.e. your far mp turns into a close mp, then use lp to anti air him. If the lp is parried, go into hurricane.
Abuse hurricanes to start off since he can’t punish them with his normals. He can with a super though, so be careful. A good tactic is the first time you use the hurricane and he blocks, option parry low after you finish 
Be warned though - Dudley can perform stun combos on Akuma if the player has above average execution - so one red parry off your hurricane may cost you the round…
Don’t try and do the advanced juggles with medium hurricane on Dudley because they dont work :sad: Also, after landing lk hurricane, instead of the normal HP dragon, I’ve seen Macchi/Match, who is one of Japans best Akuma players, do lp dragon then use the extra time gained to get in close. Plus its not as easy to connect all 3 hits of the HP dragon on Dudley during BnB :xeye:
Dudley has terrible throw range, so you should be giving him a hard time with kara throws. Figure out what throw setups your Dudley opponent is using, and beat him to it by using kara throws. For example, people love to cancel a poke into the duck move and grab. Maybe mix it up with low parry or just an attack. If you ever see the duck and it looks like it’ll end up very close to you, option parry forward for in case an attack comes out from the duck, then kara throw.
Avoid using air fireballs against him, unless its used to get in on him while he’s down. The reason is his duck move - comfortably goes under air and ground fireballs. For the same reason, dont throw out ground fireballs against him either in the hope of him parrying and you moving in closer.
Best to play this match grounded as Dudley can anti air Akuma quite well. Not only that, but his duck under your jump into a reverse super is just painful!
Dudley has the best wakeup game, so you need to be slightly reckless on wakeup. Chances are that you cannot block his f+ HK overhead on reaction as well as cr.shorts - and both of these can chain into super :sad: Just make sure that you always ROLL when knocked down, and look for chances to teleport away if Dudley is on top of you. And if you EVER see him throwing out the rose - TELEPORT! Not to run away, but because the rose gives you that time to teleport away.
REMY: A good Remy will not use lovs once you get in close. From far away, UOH over low lovs and crouch under high ones, walking forward just a little bit every now and then. Always look to use RH sweep if Remy throws a high lov fairly close to you. If you anticipate a lov when you’re just outside sweep range, try throwing out a fireball xx sa1. It’ll cancel the lov and remy will eat a full super. Its very hard to actually do this - the point, I think, is to stop Remy from throwing the close lovs which will help you move in closer. At that range, he can’t really punish you after blocking the super.
If close to Remy and you see him STANDING, go for demon flip mixups. His cr.HP doesn’t usually have the priority to out-do the demon flip options. If it looks like he’s charging and waiting, use straight jump air fireballs from outside flash kick range.
When he starts rushing you, look out for the kara throw. Remy has two kara throws - mp and HK. The HK one is slow, but has crazy range. He has very fast light ticks which he’ll use to keep you away, so low parries when you get in close. Also be ready for the lov, dash in setups.
If you’re up against a scrub Remy who throws out full screen SA1 every now and then, dump a air SA1 on him. Looks kinda cool with all those fireballs on the screen and game even slows down a bit during that time 
Remy has to work less to get hits on Akuma, but he’ll never get more than 2 or 3 hits in at any time. Its therefore important that you stay in control and not let him slowly chip away at your baby girl health.
I may have mentioned this before, but abuse Akuma’s axe kick (close HK) on Remy - if you do it right he’ll be stunned very soon. I usually try and do this by getting in with divekicks and following up with the axe kick. One divekick and axekick will build up more than 50% stun on Remy I think which will put them on the defensive.
YUN: Basically, when playing Yun, remember the following:
Genei Jin kills Akuma
Good GJ user kills a blocking Akuma
THEREFORE -
target combo kills Akuma…
Only way to get the upper hand in this match is to find ways out of GJ, given that you’re blocking. This will mean using red parries, teleports, demons and (risky) SA1 or dragon.
MUST LEARN, GO INTO TRAINING MODE AND LEARN IT - I’M STILL TRYING TO GET THE TIMING DOWN 100% - red parry the final mp of Yun’s target combo. You may want to try red parrying the second hit of his mp,hp,b+hp combo, NOT the third hit as thats easy to parry, but also easy to change the timings on it… But anyways, try your best to red parry the third hit of his BnB target combo.
INTERESTING FACT: UKs best casual player, Damien, tells me that Yun’s divekick pressure hardly gives him problems. He simply uses the classic cr.HP to anti air it and says that it has never failed him :xeye: Can anyone try this out and let me know how well it works for them?
So lets talk about Yun’s divekicks. Yes I know they’re annoying. Yeah they’re a bitch. Of course they’re cheap. I mean, the guy himself says POO when he does them. POO = SHIT. Anyways, we still gotta work around it. One other thing though which, again, I havent done yet but should sometime soon - read up on the Yun strategy guides. What exactly are they thinking when they start rushing? What things are they looking out for? What things annoy them the most?
First off, dive kicks will almost always start from a STRAIGHT jump. Remember this fact. If a Yun player just casually jumps forward and tries to hit you with a dive kick (without a specific plan of some sort) - they’re rubbish. Anyways, straight jump dive kicks are very good for Yun to zone you safely. Rather than explaining lk,mk and HK versions, lets just use the spacing and angles to explain things.
Dive kick whiffs well out of throw range - They’re probably trying to bait you into trying a dragon punch or some other anti air which will just leave you open. In this year’s SBO finals, Match throws out an SA1 on Nitto when he did a whiff divekick like this. Sickness - his dive kick landed right into the super! Try using Akuma’s far HP as well - just make sure YOUR move doesn’t whiff!
Lands in throw range. The most common things that I’ve seen happen here are Yun grabbing you (command or not) or cr.lk or cr.mk - lunge punch. One other thing I’ve seen is jump AGAIN and do a crossover divekick. Poo…
Dive kick hits. This one is hard to explain. At certain distances, you should be able to parry the divekick. Obviously it gets harder as the distance shortens. The important thing to remember here is what to do AFTER you block the divekick. Also applies in some cases where you get HIT by the divekick - because its not that straightforward to link his target combo from a divekick. Key thing first is DO NOT aim to throw Yun after blocking a divekick - I’m pretty sure that is what they WANT you to try. Why? The divekick puts you in enough blockstun such that by the time your throw comes out, they can be airborne again, and this time they’ll get a GJ in. Or even worse, if they go straight into target combo, it’ll probably beat your throw attempt since Yun’s lp comes out FASTER than a throw. So one strategy could be blocking until you see a chance to red parry that target combo. Another one which is used by most tournament players is that they look out for when Yun jumps and anti air them straight away. For example, that acho match where Yuki beat that 5 man team - remember what he did to KO just before the demon? KO did a divekick or jump in which Yuki blocked, then KO jumped straight again, most probably do dive in, but Yuki did a HP to knock him out before the dive kick could come out. Obviously it was straight after that that Yuki did his own divekick, then kara demon :badboy:
Overall though, once Yun manages to get in with those divekicks, Akuma blocking or not, Yun will eventually gain the momentum. The idea here is to stop him from getting in in the first place. The plan here is kick him out of the air then do a sa1 so that he has no choice but to parry. Or better yet - AIR HURRICANE THAT SHIT OUT!
When the dive kicks are done as whiffs, you have to condition the opponent to realise that you will poke or super the whiff divekicks - thus forcing them to use divekicks that will actually hit you. Then you can start thinking about parrying them or hitting them out first.
Speaking of hurricanes, that is one move you CANNOT abuse on the twins. They can duck it and punish very easily. Forget hurricanes for this match…
However one move you can abuse to some extent is the demon flip. Yun doesn’t have a very good anti air, and the demon flip just may be your best friend in this matchup. Use distancing well - don’t let them walk under your demon flip. Start off the flip mixups using your grab, and keep mixing up - your eventual goal is to land the dive kick off the demon flip as late as you can then follow up with a massive combo (Jiro does this A LOT against twins - usually ends up stunning them).
Due to Yun’s faster pokes which can pretty much stuff all of Akuma’s pokes - you shouldnt really try to poke him to death. Either go for hits that you can confirm into combos (like the demon flip mixups), or just stick to tick throw setups. Tick throw or kara throws will work very well against Yun players in general.
If you’ve been knocked down in the corner, then beware of what the divekicks can do. If, while you’re waking up, you see Yun jump - just teleport away. If he does try a divekick, it wont work. Otherwise you might just get caught, but I’d prefer that to getting done by a corner divekick setup :wasted:
GJ owns Akuma because of his baby health. But also remember that Yun takes crazy damage from Akuma as well, so it works both ways. Its just that Yun has the frame and speed advantage on Akuma.
From what I’ve seen, I’m fairly sure that Yun looks for any opportunity for a straight jump, SPECIALLY WHEN HE IS UNDER PRESSURE. I use this fact sometimes to air hurricane them out, but it backfires at times when they cop onto what I’m doing. I end up looking quite silly, but then I saw Jiro whiffing a few air hurricanes against the twins as well so now I dont feel too bad :bgrin:
When GJ is activated and you didn’t block in time:
watch Yun carefully and let me know if you think that Yun looks like a roasted pussy on toast :xeye:
If you are blocking: Crouch block mostly since not all overheads can be chained into more attacks. Look out for Yun dashing in and trying either cr.lk xx palm or command grab. You should be able to do something to get out or hit Yun when you see the dash - but you have to be very quick.
Learn to red parry the second (or even both) hit of the shoulder during GJ. Japs do this a lot.
If Yun jumps during GJ, think teleport the fuck away as far as I can. Keep him away with air fireballs - but bear in mind that he can still hit you while you’re airborne from further than you’d think using his lunge punch or even b.HP.
If you have two bars, Yun should be very careful about what he does, because your demon can go through almost all his attacks during GJ. Requires some messing about with.
Just remember that on wakeup, if you see Yun in the air, DO NOT CROUCH BLOCK IN ANY WAY. A divekick is probably coming so be ready to block or parry. If you have your timings down properly, you can commit to pressing one direction at the right moment and the divekick will either be blocked or parried - but I wouldnt recommend trying this for fun in a real match :arazz:
The air hurricane is your main weapon against Yun’s air game. Whenever you think a divekick is coming or Yun might jump - then the air hurricane is simply your best friend. Lots of damage, resets and juggle opportunities - just go for the HP reset cancelled to the demon flip because Yun can’t really get out of that mayhem without parrying, or going for EX dragon kick which might even get stuffed by your demon flip :badboy:
But you need to bear in mind that if Yun has spotted this, he can very easily wait on the ground, and as soon as you land from the hurricane, target combo xx GJ :mad: Or if you’re lucky and he’s out of range, he’ll just settle for cr.mk xx lunge punch which still does a lot of damage to akuma.
This is where reflexes have to come into play. When you go for the jump, do the hurricane motion but dont press - WATCH if Yun is still on the ground or not. If he is, you have to (within that split second) decide on how or what move you can use so that you land fairly safely.
For example (I’ll only use this one extended example here, figure out the rest and let me know if you have questions) - Yun is just out of your sweep range. After a second or two you’re fairly sure he’ll go for a straight jump. So you super jump forward in the hopes of hurricaning him out. Now unfortunately Yun does NOT jump - so no hurricane should come out from you. Decide quickly between:
Divekick
Air fireball
empty jump in
late hurricane
late jump in HP/HK
Yuns best answer to someone’s jump in is to walk underneath them. To avoid this you need to go for something like a late hurricane. This might work because as Yun starts walking under you, a hurricane might hit him from the other side. The only problem is that the timing on this is very strict.
The other option is a divekick. If you’re fairly early in your jump and Yun is walking forward but still not quite under you, a divekick should quickly place you in front of Yun or just hit him. Unless he parried it - you should be safe and on the offence.
Air fireball - use that if Yun is actually walking away while you’re landing.
Empty jump in - go for this if you’re very good at parrying in the air, as well as on landing i.e. its possible to jump over Yun and actually parry what he does to you when you land. This is actually the best option in my opinion.
Use the late jump in attack if Yun is in front of you as you land.
Yun owns Akuma. So remember to play this match KNOWING that you’re using a weaker character, so there isn’t any ‘fair fighting’ going on. Its all about baiting and double guessing the other side.
**CHUN-LI: ** 1.) hurricanes kick only when your punches/kicks hit .
2.) Fireballs will go through and get punished badly also through but you can bait them and recover if theres enough space.
3.) Try jumping and keep in mind that u don’t have to attack try to anticipate standing hard punch also parry low punich crounching short and short will be her sa2 if they cancel into it.
4.) cross up’s through deamon kick flip kick use over heads forward strong punch st rhoundhouse when close uoh air hurricane when u see a jump oppurtunity punish last hit of sa2 combo rush down.
RYU: Unless the Ryu player is much better than you, this match is in your favour. You have to take advantage of your extra speed and strong air game. As for Denjin - you should be able to teleport through every single one of them. A very good Denjin Ryu player will change his super against Akuma.
Matchu-Ups Part 2 of 2:
KEN: Matchup in Ken’s favour. Good Ken will know this and take advantage of his ‘stronger aspects’. Must figure out how the player you are playing against uses these stronger aspects - and then develop COUNTERS against them, not just DEFENCE mechanisms. Because once he sees you defending, he can start mixing up and sooner or later he will get through your guard. Now at the same time, this doesn’t mean that you should rush him. Akuma is a blatant rushdown character, but many of his options don’t work well against Ken, so whatever ‘rushdown’ you choose to go for, it MUST be one that you have just developed specifically for your opponent i.e. a certain rushdown pattern worked well against USA’s top Ken player does not mean it will work in the least against Brazil’s worst Ken. Has to be tailor made in the case of Ken because, again, he is the stronger character.
You are not controlling Q here so you cannot wait around for Ken to make a mistake - you must decide quickly as to what you’re going to do AND DO IT. It may backfire, but at least your opponent will be on his toes because they’ve noticed that you’re not taking the shit lying down.
You must first understand what options Ken has at various points during the match. It should be based around this that you develop your counters.
And remember that Ken can stuff all of Akuma’s options to get in from the air, so you will have to play grounded most of this game.
I’ve structured things so that something Ken can do is listed first, with possible followups from Akuma.
Full screen:
Fireball, Ex fireball - parry, wait. If your opponent is the type that likes to run after his fireball while it approaches you, jump straight up over the fireball - be ready to parry an air EX hurricane in the worst case, otherwise just be ready to fireball or air super if Ken gets too close for comfort.
TRAINING MODE: Parry two hits of the EX hurricane in the air, then retaliate with an air super. Not that hard in training, crazy hard in a real match.
Avoid throwing fireballs after a parry. Look at Ken while parrying fireballs at full screen. It may seem at times that you can parry then throw out your own projectile. Ken can time a super jump at this point to screw you over. Besides, were you actually expecting your fireball to hit him??
Stick with charging bar in this scenario. As much as you may hate watching Ken charge his own bar, he can screw Akuma without his bar almost just as bad. So concentrate on getting your own bar as opposed to wasting his. Things get easier for Akuma when he has one super ready, and MUCH easier with two
EX hurricane - Remember that Ken can cross Akuma in the corner. Even from full screen, he can time a super jump with EX hurricane which will cross and hit you. So be on the lookout. When you do see it - jump parry, crouch block, walk under - making sure blocking in right direction. Very easy to get the directions wrong and you will end up dashing into the EX hurricane. Safest option is crouch block as soon as you see it. Chance of punishment that way if he lands close enough.
Ken dashes a few times to get in. Certain patterns of dash back and dash forward can place him perfectly to go for an ambiguous crossup. Keep moving yourself to mess up his positioning, but ALWAYS be weary of getting crossup up.
Far jump in i.e you can’t dash under him, but a late attack before landing will definitely hit you - dash back straight jump, jump towards with parry, jump towards with hurricane, parry his jump-in, wait for landing then overhead or kara throw or dash throw depending on where he lands.
ALWAYS be aware of getting crossed in corner. Sorry I have to repeat this, but if Ken gets a cross up on Akuma, the round is basically his.
Careful if you want to SA1 jump ins due to possibility of EX crossing over. Wait for the landing frame before committing to throwing out the super. Shouldn’t be too difficult for a full screen super jump in since the EX has to be done quite early for it to actually cross. Remember one thing though - most Ken players won’t try a full screen jump EX hurricane unless they know there’s a chance it will connect. So try baiting it out of them with straight and back jumps. In general however, you should be able to SA1 them out of the air as long the distance is right.
TRAINING MODE - quick sa1. With dashing and walking. Same for short short super. Practice low tech throw jab, short super.
Mid screen (just outside sweep range):
normal jump in i.e. does not cross up:
option parry forward
If you get the parry, go for a quick dragon which you should not confirm into super.
If this is hard, then HP. Combo a red fireball off the HP - parry bait for Ken as he lands, plus its not easy to parry either. Dashing in is fairly safe, but I’d avoid it in this particular case since your dash will end at the same time that Ken lands. I believe that if Ken tries to grab you on landing, you wont have enough time to dash back again after your dash forward. This is an example of what I called a 50/50 scenario - not necessarily in your favour therefore unsafe.
If you think the HP wont connect, go for a lp reset. This opens up the possibility for a juggle SA1. If they start parrying the SA1, there’s tons of things you can do to mess up the parrying which I wont mention now since you should be able to figure them out. If you dont want to try a super, just remember that you still have the advantage here so keep the pressure on. For example, Ken might be expecting a juggle SA1 and will input the forward parry while he is airborne - which will defintely leave him open to eating a meaty cr.mk to BnB combo when he lands (I’ve done this in an RB against Raju’s Urien). Mix that up with command overhead next time, then maybe kara throw next time etc etc. And dashing in this case is fairly safe.
If the jump-in was empty, then do your best to anti air Ken (which is why I said option parry foward to start off with). Make sure you hit him before he can do a deep attack which will end up in you eating a massive combo. At worst, you will trade. Go for HP or jab in this case. Follow up with other special moves to throw off their parrying. Once you condition them to do this, its very easy to get them to parry one hit, then grab them as they land because they’re still expecting more shit to parry. If in doubt, just use dragon > SA1 which is probably the best anti-air option in the game.
If you can anti-air with a standing mp (far version), then use that because a HP or dragon will NOT work at that distance. Standing mp is easy to cancel into other moves, so you shouldn’t be at a disadvantage if you use that - properly that is.
And dont forget that KKZ and Demon work very well as anti airs too, but only use them for the win.
Other things you can try are dashing underneath the jump, jumping up to meet them with parry to punishment ready, or just jump into them with an air hurricane to start some sick juggles. Or just jump away with an air fireball. Thats very safe since the only thing that can go wrong is Ken suddenly throwing out an EX hurricane which he shouldn’t unless he really was expecting you to jump.
If jump ins scare the hell out of you, try teleporting away.
In sweep range:
IMPORTANT - Jumps will most probably cross. With practice and experience, you can mess up cross up attempts quite well. First the easy options:
Block the crossup. Be ready to:
block low in case they go for crouching shorts into super.
tick throw.
overhead.
Hesitate, throw.
target combo. Since you’re blocking low, using the red parry method I described - this is the perfect time to try out the red parry on the target combo.
Slightly harder:
Dash under, punish. Punishment will depend on whether they tried to actually hit with the crossup. If they did try and it whiffed due to your dash, you can mk sweep combo them. If the cross over jump was empty, they might be ready to parry low on landing, so you need to use your judgement here. Though a blantant hurricane in this situation will keep you safe hopefully, and will also confuse the opponent as to what kind of mind games you are using
Walk under. If timed properly, you can HP Ken out of the air. In case they parry it, be ready to chain a hurricane in. If you let him land, you should be in comfortable range for a kara throw. If Ken’s mk came out and whiffed, you’re better off going for short short super rather than a combo off mk sweep which I recommended if you dashed under.
Hard:
Jump back with option parry, super.
Same as above, but straight jump.
Parry the cross up.
Dragon. There is a special way to dragon cross overs. Let me try and explain it the best I can…
Akuma on the left, Ken on the right. Now lets say Ken is jumping over Akuma. Hold down f (right in this case) while Ken is still on your right. Now as Ken is on top of your head, do df(down right), d. As soon as Ken goes to your left, db which is now df (down left) and press punch. So its almost like a half circle back that stops at db. If you understand the game engine, then this method will make sense to you. You have to play around with this though otherwise you wont know what I mean. But to dragon a cross up is something else that will scare your opponent. You can also try going for lk demon flip in this scenario instead of dragon - it looks very confusing and you can easily grab Ken.
If footsie games are going on, then the pokes you should use are standing HP (far and close versions), shorts, standing mp. If Ken does not have meter, use standing mk as well. Remember that the far version of HP is definitely your friend here - the only better friend being kara throw. Now Ken is stronger with the footsies, so the general momentum will be with him doing the poking while parrying anything you may try. So make sure your pokes have hurricanes chained to them if they are parried. But most importantly, look for ways to kara throw Ken during footsies. Once you start doing that, they will have to adapt their game to deal with your throws, which in turn gives you a chance to poke more. Try avoiding parries on the ground - Ken can link supers from both high and low attacks so a wrong parry can cost you the round. Don’t try and play footsie games in the same way as Ken because Akuma simply cannot do that. You should be blocking more in this situation and looking for mistakes or ways to kara throw. Don’t poke Ken - too risky. Mk demon flips might work ok at this distance. It needs to look like a normal jump though - if Ken realises its a flip, he can dragon and there’s nothing you can do. If you play against someone that is a bit too good with parrying, then you have to change the game to a throwing game. Demon flip grabs will work well against such players.
In general, the best way to get in on Ken is actually at this distance. Its just hard. Be ready to use jump ins now. Jump towards Ken with air parries ready and then:
If he did a ground poke at the same time as your jump started, you should be able to dive kick combo him on the recovery of his poke. If you dont see him in poke animation, DO NOT attempt the divekick - too risky. Use a late jumpin HP if you haven’t been anti air’d by this point. That HP will put you very close to Ken and you should be able to control the momentum.
Ken’s wakeup. Point #1 - STAY WITH HIM!! The difference between the both of you standing and one of you on the floor is so that the standing guy gets some time to get in close. Now you might think “Yeah, but I can get in close without having to knock them down”. If thats the case, then either you are damn good, or the Ken you are playing is rubbish. Because if Ken is waiting for you to try and rush him, he can do tons of things to keep you out.
So on his wakeup, you stay close and plan attacks that are hard for him to 1)block 2)parry 3)punish. Or 4)confuse him.
Now there is always a chance that he will wakeup dragon. In general they will rarely try that. Overall though, good players consider wakeup dragons BAD and will only do them if they see a good reason, not something like “Oh no I’m down and he’s gonna keep pressuring me if I dont do something”. Its hard to describe ways to prepare for a wakeup dragon in addition to keeping the pressure on. All I can say for the moment is that watch what a good player does when you knock him down. Consider the following things
1)what did he do on wakeup - parry, block, special, jump, poke?
2)how did he manage to get out of my pressure game. What did I do wrong that gave him the opening to safety?
3)Was what I was about to do to him on wakeup kind of obvious? What kind of thing would he NOT have expected?
Anyways, Akuma has a very nice tool to stuff wakeup dragons…
Before we get to what you actually do once Ken is about to get up, you have to first consider HOW DID YOU KNOCK HIM DOWN IN THE FIRST PLACE? I say this because Ken will quick recover all the time (assume that at least) apart from when you super’d him. You need to know the different ways to approach a grounded/rolling Ken based on the different knockdown move you used. If you arent at least in cr.short range and ready with a meaty attack by the time Ken has finished rolling, then you haven’t really put on any pressure.
For example, you do a ground RH hurricane. Knocks Ken down. Now even if he quick rolls, two successive dashes from you will put you next to him before you can throw anything out. But even better - if you do a RH demon flip after your hurricane finishes and then go into dive kick (you’ll figure out the timing), you can actually land on the other side of Ken in a very ambiguous way - hopefully Ken wont even be blocking in that direction. Maximum damage combo! You will see this a lot from Jap Akumas. Same after knocking down with Bnb. So then you can mixup - the next demon flip dive kick can be done SLIGHTLY earlier - it’ll look the same except you WONT cross Ken. Another mixup - delay the start of your demon flip, DONT cancel to dive kick until Ken has already woken up and noticed that you’re still in the air. Then just before you hit the ground, do a late dive kick which has a high chance of hitting and chain a massive combo behind it. Sorry, that last mixup was hard to explain. Fuck, I’m gonna have to cut out snippets from videos to illustrate these points innit??
In general however, always try and approach a grounded opponent with a meaty air fireball. This is the incredible tool that stuffs wakeup dragons. Only an EX dragon or well timed super can go through it, but even that is very risky and a good Ken won’t try it unless desperate. And if they’re desperate, the win should be yours…
Go into training mode and play around with knocking someone down and getting in on them with meaty air fireballs. Make sure you follow up with something that contradicts the way they blocked/parried the fireball. For example, a lot of Ken players love to parry the fireball and go straight into dragon. If you did your bit right, then you can land a quick cr.medium kick while Ken is in the initial parry frames. If you think they’re gonna block, one of the best options is command overhead (f + mp). If you think they might try and EX dragon or super through it - block That will really piss them off! This should be the basis of your wakeup game and build around it.
Examples (All assuming you did a perfect meaty air fireball)
demon flip grab
another air fireball
command overhead, standing HP
cr.short, kara throw
if they parry, kara throw
standing mk (close knee version), follow up with super or throw as I described in some other post :arazz:
Jump away and do a late air fireball - then you can dash back in again - looks very dominating and will scare the Ken player
etc etc
Remember that you can abuse the kara throw in this situation, but I would recommend against it simply because you can do MORE damage by going for pokes. The meaty air fireball will throw off Ken’s momentum giving you a slight chance of getting more pokes in.
One more thing before I stop typing this one (work finished so going home now) - learn to ‘hit confirm’ an air fireball into air super fireball. This works well during wakeup (Ken’s). So you knocked him down and say you’re right next to him. In fact you just stick to him waiting for him to get up. And because you have been kara throwing his ass all day he’ll probably expect the same again. The moment he is ready to be thrown, jump back with an instant air fireball. If you saw Ken flinch in any way, confirm a super into it. If Ken was just blocking, dont super. Requires a bit of practice, but not too hard.
In fact, air supers are a very good weapon against tech throw attempts.
Akuma waking up…
Obviously, this is a scenario you do NOT want to be in :sad:
First thing first - always try and quick roll. If you were knocked down mid screen or something by a sweep, then a quick roll will wake you up before Ken is in a comfortable position to try any mixup he likes. A quick roll limits his options therefore giving you less to worry about - but there’s still enough to worry about :arazz:
If you’re in the corner however and Ken is already on top of you, then you may want to NOT quick roll at times. The reason is simply the opposite of what I described in the earlier post about Ken’s wakeup - he is probably planning on a nice combo which requires you to quick roll in the corner and for you to not roll will throw off his timing thus forcing him to come up with another plan. As a side note - I do this A LOT against Urien when he gets me in the corner as its much easier for me teleport on a normal wakeup out of an aegis as opposed to roll wakeup.
Now, in theory, Akuma has every option of a safe escape on wakeup - you just have to guess right. You can argue that the same is the case with every other character, but more so with Akuma due to his large variety of moves. Here’s the order in which I take things:
Strategy: So lets assume you were succesful with the first wakeup hurricane. Ken’s going to prepare for it now…
He can do a meaty attack on your wakeup which the hurricane wont save you from. Standing RH, sweep from far will do the trick. Meaty UOH or target combo will work from close. Most Ken players will go for the far option, because the close options can get stuffed by a wakeup dragon.
He can block it the same way he would a wakeup dragon. If you used RH hurricane, and he crouch blocked, chances are you will cross him and the last hit will launch him. A quick sa1 will get him in this scenario, though there is some notable damage reduction. If he blocked high, he may be ready to punish. Punishing this isn’t that easy - he must do a reversal super (easy) or reversal dragon (hard). Choose the best option of what to do when the hurricane finishes. If you are fairly sure that Ken may block high or is at least anticipating the hurricane, go for the mk version as it finishes quicker than they expect and you can get a quick throw in before they realise And if the mk hurricane actually connected, then you can juggle with a mp dragon or HK hurricane followed by taunt.
Ken will need a lot of balls to stay in your face when you’re using random hurricanes. If he doesn’t, he’ll keep his distance on your wakeup so your problem is solved :tup: Otherwise…
Lets say you’ve exhausted all hurricane avenues. Next option:
2)Teleport. Only go for this if Ken is on top of you when waking up. If you think that he’ll throw something out and your wakeup hurricane wont beat it, then teleporting away is your safest option. You must be sure he isn’t looking out for it, since he can easily run after you and hit you when you recover. Mixup the pp and kk version. Also try teleporting back into the corner as this can look very confusing at times. This leaves you open for a small duration though, so be careful when using this. One thing I do at times is teleport back into the corner, then teleport straight out again. Makes you look like a stylish coward :xeye:
Learn to block:
If you’ve decided in a particular instance not to go for any wakeup specials, then you’re obviously deciding to block.
Crouch block is your default here. UOH linked to super or dragon will only work at certain ranges and times (meaty) - all you have to do is know those ranges and times so that when Ken tries it, you’ll be ready to block high. In other scenarios, DO NOT STRESS about getting hit by UOH. Damage is rubbish and stun is negligible. Axe kick (b + mk) has a startup which is slow enough for you to reaction block. If you’ve got good reflexes - parry it. And remember the reversal hurricanes and kara throws while you block
If you’re trapped in a corner, here’s one thing you can use which I find incredibly useful:
Jump back. Now Ken will be ready to parry an attack which you’ll throw out and punish you, or maybe anti-air you. This is a pure guessing game now for Ken. You can parry his anti-air and screw him up. If he waits for you though, go into a late air fireball, then teleport out as soon as you land. Whether he parried or blocked the fireball or not, the teleport should keep you safe until he’s recovered from the fireball.
And if, like me, you just end up in a pressure situation that you dont know how you got into and your mind isn’t thinking straight and you’re positive that one plus one equals three etc etc… in other words, you go for a wakeup dragon, ALWAYS try and chain an sa1 into it. A dragon on its own will get punished with a maximum damage combo, but punishing a blocked sa1 usually means settling for just sa3 or maybe cr.mk>sa3 if their timings are very accurate.
Other stuff which I couldn’t really fit in anywhere else:
demon flip on wakeup. This move has a 1 frame startup. The point? If Ken tried a combo, the first hit will knock you out of the demon flip which will reset you. Hopefully Ken will still combo into whatever special move which should whiff since you’re in a reset state. You just MIGHT be able to punish him on your landing. If he hasn’t attacked you, go for the grab option. Next time round, you’ll get dragon’d if the Ken player is good :arazz:
crouching light kick, combo into hurricane. A nice high low mixup which is a nightmare to parry, and looks confusing when blocked. Very hard to punish the light kick if parried since the hurricane comes out very quickly.
Wakeup demon - do it if you’re SURE the opponent isn’t expecting it.
Wakeup kara demon - if a demon is anticipated and they wait just out of grab range. Kara the demon to close that range :badboy:
Wakeup Dash Demon - if they’re waiting for you to do something, but outside even kara range.
Wakeup kkz - For people who like to jump near you in case you tried a demon. In fact, if you know they’re going to jump - let them. Demon them as they land
Instant air SA1 - good for going over ground pokes and avoiding throw attempts. Requires very strict timing on wakeup though.
Crouching short short super - Obviously if you haven’t been poked first. Requires sharp observation skills i.e. you have to spot within that split second of your wakeup that you haven’t been attacked and that Ken isn’t in the middle of starting an attack either - get in there first!
Lk hurricane - :wtf: Try it though - the results can be interesting
MAKOTO: Try not to jump in on Makoto unless she’s knocked down. You need to constantly play guessing games in certain situations just to throw off their momentum e.g. they might start getting used to the way you dragon her jump ins - mix it up with air hurricanes or sweeps. Try and avoid tick karakusa or any karakusa setups with demon flips or mk/hk hurricanes. She can fukiage you out of flips and air hurricanes if she spots them early enough so don’t be predictable.
what should I follow up a f.mp with? sometimes even when the hits connect I can get countered, what is a safe move to use? I usually try to kara throw but I don’t want to get predictable.
edit
I guess what I meant in this post is if f.mp is more safe against some characters over others. ?
;p akuma