Anyone have any good setups for ambiguous hop where the opponent really has to guess which side you land on? I usually switch it up between regular dash (doesn’t crossup) and hop (crosses up) to leave the opponent somewhat guessing, but I don’t really have any specific setups for making it tough to see even if you pay close attention (luckily most people online don’t know how to block, though). Any tips?
The problem with the most ambiguous hop setups is that they either require a reset(air, ex ball fadc, or a crumple) and if you go into raw elec you can trigger some input glitch where electricity comes out late.
On most hard kd’s you’re better off going with a safejump/ambiguous jumpin especially against characters with reversals 8f or faster, or going high/low with overhead vs. whiff rockcrusher into a low. You could probably experiment with some different kara hops though, and close to the corner it’s sometimes very hard to crossup hop certain characters.
Slide is the situation where this would in theory be the most useful but since slide knockdown times are distance based you have to just eyeball it. I like to just kinda eyeball and front side vs. backside hop.
Overall dash vs. hop works on most people well enough as it is. It works on my friend who mained Blanka for 2 years, and it worked on Infiltration when I played him. Sweep, dash dash and sweep dash hop will give you the safest possible meaty cr.lk’s though.
Thanks, man! Care to elaborate on the overhead whiff into low thing?
Also, do you have a link to your matches vs Infiltration?
Well when doing meaty overheads(sweep, dash/hop, overhead) the overhead will hit on either the exact frame the opponent wakes up(frame 47-48) for most characters, or the frame directly after if you’re a little late.
Now a whiffed rockcrusher has the exact same animation as an overhead but is faster. It’s 24 total frames. So you can setup a mixup by whiffing rockcrusher and going low and create a situation where you are hitting them 2f after they wake up with a perfectly timed rockcrusher and cr.lk. You can also just use this as a bait if the opponent is trying to react to overhead to dp it or whatever and just block. I also like whiff rockcrusher into kara throw.
My match vs. infil was supposed to be streamed apparently but wasn’t because of a communication error, sorry.
That’s some advanced stuff you’ve got going there, man. Usually watch T Srai for Blanka inspiration, but he’s obviously far beyond my level. I use a Versus fightpad som I can’t do mkxxelec consistently. I have to go for lpxxelec instead; would you say mkxxelec is a must for high-level Blanka play? Usually beat around 4000 PP players, but it feels annoying to lose out on damage potential and “low attribute”.
cr.mk xx elec is actually one of Blanka’s least useful combos. It’s very rarely max damage, and it’s going to get even more character specific in Ultra. I really only use it on crumples or on a dizzy when I don’t want to drop a combo. In most situations cr.mk, st.lp xx electricity works, will do more damage, and be safer on block.
cr.lk xx electricity I would say is super important though, and as long as you can do that, lp xx elec and the link combos you’re fine.
I can’t do crlkxxelectricity; I am restricted to lpxxelec. I do very well online (against tournament level players) with it, though … Probably won’t be possible to incorporate crlkxxelectricity into my game as I play on a controller.
pad blanka is hard man. It makes his already awkward execution harder.
I actually beat around 5000 PP players with him using a pad. I love the Versus Fightpad – except that it just broke after only ONE month of using it. I’m so mad right now. Both this one and the Madcatz fightpad broke so quickly. 
yeah pads break quickly especially with input intensive characters.
I mean more power to you, losing cr.lk xx elec is huge though.
Why? Please explain so I know what I am missing out on. I actually managed to pull it off several times yesterday so it is possible that I can incorporate it into my game!
cr.lk is Blanka’s safest meaty attack, and it hits low, and cr.lk xx electricity is + on block. This allows left/right safe hop mixup against a lot of characters with slower reversals(Bison/Sakura/Rufus etc.). If you attempt to hit confirm here cr.lk has minimal frame advantage on block so you can get in a bad situation with jabs trading and pushing you back out, or someone low profiling a followup st.jab with some cr.lk’s/mk’s.
Save up and buy a stick! Best decision you will ever make!