Did you guys find sasaki for me? Is he as handsome in real life as I imagined he would be?
Geifs are on another lvl here, so are hawks. KOG was getting huge streaks on everyone, he even beat Cantona like 15 games in a row. Cantona looked like he was about to body KOG irl because of how salty he was
I played a pretty long set with KOG as well. He bodied me the first two games, but then I beat him like 6 in a row. KOG is nasty though, makes crazy reads.
America seriously needs to pick up the slack with hawk and Blanka. I can’t stress enough how good the blanka’s are over here.
As for Sasaki, he’s a online warrior, so he doesn’t show up to arcades. Besides that, I think he’s from Osaka, hella far from where I’m at
Would you please elaborate on Blanka when you get the chance?
I want to know what I’m missing out on other than having crappy execution and missing all my short short ultras.
Besides the tight execution… i think they have a lot of mixups tactics, making good reads combined with A LOT of high level matchup experience.
At least thats what I think.
I’ll do a write up when I get back on Monday.
it’s 11am here, so I’m going to do some tourist shit and then off to the arcades. I’ll try to record some shit while in there. It’s hard since it’s not allowed, but u can get away with it if you aren’t caught
Yeah mixups don’t seem to outrageous. They seem to be running a lot of the same stuff I’m running, but most blanka players just do hops and see how it goes.
Yeah you can’t underestimate matchup knowledge though for sure. I don’t have a lot of top players to practice some matches with, easy to get blown up.
Thanks a bunch.
Have fun!
Id be glad to help you upload em videos if you dont mind me doing so, Strider.
discouraging 
Back from the grind in Taito. I feel a lot more comfortable in the Ibuki matchup now, I went undefeted against several Master-ranked Ibuki’s. The match is still hard though.
I also played a Master and Grand Master Sakura, shit that match is tough. I did well, but didn’t dominate like vs Ibuki. Saks here have hella tricks/shenanigans that I’ve never seen before. You can still 10-0 her after a knockdown, but getting it is a huge issue.
I’m doing a lot better vs twins though, since they used to rape me for free when I got here. I can put up a much better fight now, I was doing really good vs Fuc*k Yun. I’m still hella free vs Fei though 
I’m almost at Master rank with Abel with a 65% win-ratio (up from 48% from the first few days I got here lol), hopefully I get it before I leave on sunday
Hey strider, i know you’re probably busy and sick of constantly writing, but after hearing about all these insanely good giefs… is there anything you can offer on the match-up? New insight/tricks?
I’m seriously questioning using Abel just because of this match-up.
Yo Strider why werent you at NSB?
Consider yourself fortunate that you didn’t play this m/u in Vanilla, EX GH no longer knocks down and that there aren’t many, if any, Giefs of that calibur in the States haha
Unfortunately minnesota (where I live) is the gief capital of the US.
Cause the train down there is like 200 lol
I offered him a spot in my friends car for only 4000yen round trip… too bad he didnt reply…
Oh shit, sorry HFZ, I just barely checked my inbox since I usually check SRK through Tapatalk…Wow, I would’ve taken your offer man, you should’ve contacted me through fb/twitter lol. W/e, I had fun that weekend anyways. Thanks though man, it was great finally getting to meet you irl and getting to hang out with you for a bit, you should seriously consider coming to Evo. We’ll return the same hospitality you showed us Utah-dudes over there.
Alright, so I’m back now and in full force. I honestly feel that I leveled up considerably overall, especially vs the twins. I got some brand spanking-new technology as well that I want to showcase in SCR. I feel Japan opened my eyes to a deeper part of the game, a part you don’t really see in videos or experience in matches with American competition. They showed me the cheapest fucking parts of the game, and forced me to adapt to them on the fly. They showed me how to abuse a character to its fullest and not worry about technicalities, to just play and trust your reads.
I don’t think I can look at this game the same way now, like I said, they opened my eyes to how it’s supposed to be played. People that tell you that frame data isn’t that important or useful, that it’s all on your reads/decisions, are wrong. The very best players have both, the technical aspect, and the human psychological aspect. Top Japanese players have mastered both parts, and it shows in their game. They have memorized every characters frame-data, and they know how to abuse every frame gap in those match-ups to their fullest. This style forced me to adapt and make it part of my game as well, so I feel that alone has taken me to a new level, well, that and the fact that I also hella stole tech from Nekojita lol.
Speaking of Nekojita…the dude is amazing. Not to nut-hug or anything, but he’s by FAR, the best Abel right now, hands down. The fact that he beats the best Fei’s, Yun’s, Yang’s, Akuma’s and Gief’s is inspiring, not only that, but the way he beats them. He pretty much makes them look like scrubs. His reads are on-point, and he has very match-up specific tech he uses. Also, the way he uses step kick without canceling is really smart. He knows when to use it, he doesn’t just throw it out there, he also uses it after a standard block string (cr.lk, cr.lp, cr.lp, step kick no dash), and that leaves him at the perfect distance to step kick again. This catches people trying to either throw after the first step kick or trying to mash 3-frame normals to stuff your follow-ups. Genius. He also uses ex.COD to perfection. He knows when to throw it out, he knows scenarios where the opponent feels safe to just throw a random poke here and there. For example, he would do standard shit like empty jump into sweep range, and then just EX.COD. Fuck it. It worked every time I saw him do it. What you see in his vids isn’t even 10% of how he plays, not even close.
I’m actually excited to see how far training in the hyperbolic time-chamber will take my game now… Expect to see some new Strider-original tech out there soon
Yeah man, go and win shit with abel!
I need to go to Tokyo and study up nekojita as well lol
He also tends to block most air attacks where Id usually EX FS or even cr.mk… I wonder why.
Alright, Blanka… Honestly, one of the most underestimated characters in this game, and a character that gets a lot of high-level love in Japan. I honestly thought Blanka was ass before I went there, I thought the ball nerf was simply too much and it crippled his game. Boy was I wrong.
First of all, Japanese players don’t rely on random balls to win…actually, they don’t rely on random balls, ever. Their spacing is awesome with the balls, so they will get it to whiff right in front of you either in throw range or just barely outside of it. This creates a pretty limited mixup, but it’s something, nonetheless. Their turtling is on point. They will sit on a life lead for as long as it takes, and capitalize on the opponents frustration heavily.
Their execution is also on point. I didn’t see a Blanka their miss a cr.lk, cr.lk, U1, ever. Even random 15k BP Blanka’s have that shit 100%. They all know really ambiguous cross-ups and unblockables as well, shit is cheap as hell.
Most impressive Blanka player by far was Taku. Dude is insane!!! The reads he makes are borderline autistic, and he has a bag full of dirty Blanka tricks people haven’t seen before. When he knocks you down in the corner, he does a really tricky HP ball that puts him in the corner, and he recovers instantly into either cr.lk -> U1, throw, or jab elec pressure. He can also make the ball land right in front of you instead of in the corner for more cheap-ass shenanigans. The way he uses EX.electricity is also really smart. His reactions are also on point, he will punish jumps from pretty much full screen (especially floaty ones) with hop -> upball.
Ninkishin(sp?) is also ridiculously solid, he plays a lot calmer and safer than Taku, and goes on huge streaks everytime he shows up. I didn’t see either of them lose to Yun the whole time btw, shit seems hella free.
I was hoping there was some magical Blanka tech in Japan or something, ha. The mixups described aren’t new to me. I wish I could talk to a japanese Blanka though, they probably know more unblockables than I do.
Guess I just need to grind my execution more.
Care to expound on this a bit? I’ve seen him use it as AA vs. divekicks, but I haven’t seen EX elec used for much thats too revolutionary.
Nishikin, he’s super safe for sure, I like his style. Yun vs. Blanka is fairly straightforward. Blanka has all the tools to keep Yun out and to rush him down, I wish people would believe me when I say this.
Thanks for the answer.
He uses it mostly for safe chip, but he gets it to hit you like 4-5 times somehow (probably meaty, dunno) so it does a really good amount of chip damage, plus puts him in position to keep on pressuring with st.jab shenanigans. He also uses it for footsies, he will just throw it out there when he expects a laggy poke, and the priority/speed of EX.elec will stuff it for free.
They aren’t doing anything crazy or game breaking, they are just using Blanka’s tools to their fullest potential. Their isn’t any crazy game-changing tech that Japan is using with any character that we don’t know about (besides Yang probably), they just know how to exploit their characters strenghts to their fullest, while covering their weaknesses as well. Also, they don’t bitch about their character, ever. They play that shit out, something we should learn how to do.