MATCHUPS:
VS RUFUS:
rufus can punish blocked balls ith cr.hp so they don’t factor heavily outside of manouvring and throw mixups.
rufus can’t stop the lp x fierce elec pressure game without ex meter. getting in on rufus is a little tricky as ex hands and j.hk makes it a seriously bad idea to jump in on the guy. ex up ball stops dive pressure and usually gets a knock down. mashing elec isn’t really adviseable, dive kick has pretty good priority and can hit you clean sometimes.
Go for zoining and baiting with FA to catch pokes or provoke special moves. use lp x elec rushdown off every knockdown, but cease fire ocasionally and bait those ex messiah kicks.
vs GUILE:
slide booms on reaction and guile should start running. Guile can punish any blocked slide and flashkick any FA on reaction. As always, don’t rely on slide as a poke in this matchup
You will have to poke with cr. mp, st.mp cr.hp. s.hp and bait flash kicks with your focus attack. Guile’s primary anti-airs are low fierce, jump up air throw, ex flash kick, regular flash kick. a well timed crossup will result in guile flash kicking the wrong way and beats his other options too. with no charge you are free to go into tick throw mixups or elec pressure. after a blocked jump in guile has no reversal and so i like to tick throw off a cr.lk or bufer fierce elec after the cr.lk
VS SHOTOs: he has an answer to almost all their offensive options. Hang half a screens distance away and If they walk in to poke blanka is well equipped to dominate footsies using his pokes, espeially st.hp, which is probably the best option for close antiair and ranged jump ins should be beaten with cr.mp. If fireballed slide under or ex ball through.
If you are behind on life you can catch up with random ball, command dash in, lp ball to their feet, walk in to bait pokes (and ex fireball to the face). You can jump in at a distance that will make a srk whiff if you don’t stick out an attack.
ryu is most difficult. watch for j.hp as it beats st.hk cleanly so use st.hp for anti air here. ryu dominates up close thanks to mashing srk fadc etc, but blanka has the edge at the ranged game.
ken can’t punish blocked balls at all and his fireball game is bad, so this shouldn’t be too difficult if you hammer away and don’t wade in carelessly. Ex up ball is punishable on hit, so i suggest back dashing on wakeup which avoids cr.lp/lk pressure as most people do that on wakeup looking to either tik into throw or combo into fierce srk.
Akuma requires knowledge of when and how to advance through his air fireballs and what range to FA his st.hk to catch the 2nd kick only. fireballs can be slide under or dashed/walked under often, watch for it. Footsies need to be on point in this match and you need to know the exact range of his s.hk, possibly worth neutral umping at st.hk range.
VS SIM:
getting in on a good sim is TOUGH. FA fish at sims st.hp range or simply jump in so you land outside of his b.hk anti air etc. If you FA a st.hp you will hit the limb and can dash forward. you’ll be a character or so’s length from sim… so you can’t jump in so you ca FA again, or land into elec (not really a good idea), or you can try to walk into st.lp range. jumping in or over fireball i usually opt for j.hp as it seems to trade vs his anti airs more than other normals. you can jab ball in from full screen and hope to hit a limb but watch for fireballs.
If you land a knockdown its cross up time and full on elec pressure is essential to keep him grounded. sim will be looking to jump so walking jab pressure is good as you’ll reset him allow you to walk in and do more lp x fierce elec pressure again. sims often like to back dash or jump back when you begin your up close offensive, this makes comboing into forward command dash in block strings pretty good. I think walking elec pressure is better however. don’t let him get away and tag any bad jump backs with upball. problem is you often wont have charge as you have to stay mobile in this one.
VS CHUN :
before she gets meter, blocked ball does a much as one of her fireballs so, throw them out. once she has meter she can ultra hit balls, cr.hp and slide very easily.
Ex bird beats EVERYthing you have on her wakeup so its a good idea to safe jump or block and punish.
her small sprite means some of your pokes/ jump ins will whiff. FA works well since most chuns like to poke or do that shitty overhead/crossup . a hard fight.
BISON:
I find playing hit and run against a good bison to be the best tactic as trying to manouvre into position to begin elec pressure is pretty much impossible. it becomes far easier when bison starts coming for you. you can’t late crossup bison like you can most characters because ex stomp will take you out of the air. command dash ground crossup removes ex scissor or ps on wakeup, and a meaty cr.lk/mk even if avoided with ex stomp gives you time to walk under and punish or hitconfirm into elec combo/pressure. bison will be looking to jump out of elec pressure so walking jabs are good once again but lose horribly to ex psycho crusher. his cr.lk will find all whiffed balls so its not really wise to do them often unless you fancy eating scissors.
backdash after a cr.hp sually avoids scissors, elec stops the punch after stomps, as does rolling. When locked down in the corner, standing jab after a blocked scissor is the way to go, or ex rainbow.
Honda:
fierce elec beats all headbutts and ultra, sometimes you’ll trade but almost never lose outright. most of the time you will win. slide hp headbutts on block.
elec only beats butt drop mixups dont incorrectly.After being ochio’d honda will either butt drop, ex headbutt or ochio, ex up ball is the best option since it beats everything. without meter i would dash back if i don’t see the dropp and fa if i do. dash back eats the headbutt but i would ather be out of the ochio’loop’.
honda like bison can be elec pressured but ex headbutt hurts so mix up jumps into the rushdown. honda is crap vs crossups, with ex headbut whiffing. splash will often go the wrong way and they are usually punishable by slide.
Sagat:
at full screen jump fireballs you see early, and virtical jump ones you don’t. upon landing you should be almost able to fierce ball or jump another tiger shot if thown. if sagat knows you look for tiger shots then you have the green light to fierce ball. The chip is substantial and you need everything you can get in this fight. jumping over fireballs is not easy and you risk eaing tiger upper cut or st.hk for you troubles. If you’re ahead you can try to coward crouch X dash back and force sagat towards you.
tiger knee shuts down your poking game hard, but when its not being thown out, st.mp and cr.mp hold up very well, taking sagat out of his pokes and fireball startup. FA zoning is good until you get tigerkneed or ex fireballed and wish you didn’t bother. beat all jumps clean with cr.mp.
up close auto gaurd lets mashing tigeruppercut viable, fadc makes it safe to boot, and side-correction on wakeup as you crossup makes it retarded. sagat is a dominator at every stage of this fight. unless youre over 50% bar ahead on life, consider yourself behind. He will find you with the ultra and undo all the hard work you put in to get a lead.
Abel: This is a really tough fight as abel dominates blanka upclose. learn to backdash EVeRYTHING or you’ll be spun. ball is unsafe once he gets meter and your options becomes limited fast. you can dominate footsies but make sure you have your cr.mp aa ready as one jump in is all it takes to wreck shop and abel has the best cross up you’ll encounter as blanka.
Abel loves to jump back and hit you with j.hp, its really good anti air so st.lp pressure is good to catch abels that pre emptively jump. it is sometimes worth doing early j.mk in anticipation of a jump back fierce and land with a throw. Abels jabs are slow so you wont often be jabbed out of ilanding unless your opponent is expecting it.
elec pressure is difficult vs abel not only because of ex tornado throw, but because it whiffs vs him quite a lot, so its best to sweep after the electrcity. This may condition them to crouch block allowing you more of a chance to walk forward and jump cross up.
Once ahead try to stay just outside of st.mk range and grab any rolls, cr.mp anyjumps and try to st.lp any wheel kicks done out of position after you block it.
Boxer: since they like to walk backwards for most of the round i’ll open with hp elec. in fact i’ll often sit at mid and full screen just repeatedly doing hp elec repeatedly with no normals inbetween the minimum bursts. I don’t do this to build meter, but to bait the opponent into abondoning the turtle stance. I’ll also hop or jab ball into FA outside of his jab range and basically do a little dance to provoke a reaction.
If that doesn’t get them doing punishable charge punches then i move onto plan B, i just walk up in there with my invincible st.mp and start hitting him out of his defensive jabs. The moment i do this it opens the gates for either jump ins (dunno why) what i’m really going for, random headbutts. Once they know that i like to st.mp x 7 and get the headbutt going i’m usually free to work FA into my st.mp /cr.mp spam. i do use st.hp too but it leaves me a bit open when it whiffs so i’m shy to crack it out too often. The golden part is that once you know how to stop jabs and jab dash punches at close range with st.mp they usually become succeptable to random whiff jab balls etc.
If you can combo into jab ball, then do it. my bread and butter cr.mk stlp x hp elec whiffs vs rog so crumple pressure is pretty weak without ex meter to fadc balls, but still i find st.mp, hop/ball x FA and hp elec out of his sweep range to be pretty viable for cracking most boxers. I honestly think the problem comes when you play a boxer that has the patience to never random dash punch you, and has the reactions to tag you out of every roll jump and FA. trouble is, not many people ever reach that level.
