Blanka Strategies and Matchups

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
1

I’m gonna bite and do my part to try to contribute to the cvs2 threads. Kang told me we needed another blanka thread so I tried to mend together some useful information as well as some general information for people who want to learn. Anyone who wants to correct me or add any information feel free to. Small jump and A groove blanka both need their own strategy section. I’m too tired to add anything else tonight.

Really general:

-Crossups
small jump / jumping foward is great cross over. You can link an electricity with it and even if the foward is blocked you can go for chip damage with the electricity anyways.

command hop… Please goto the section below for more information.

-Pokes
cr. fierce start up 5 and -4 on attack. It is a long distance poke with priority. It has the ability to stop jump ins at angles.

cr. short startup 4 +5 on attack. Good poke when players are close, can do a charge move afterwards if you have charge but if you don’t you can also connect with another cr. short or standing jab for a charge move afterwards.

cr. foward startup 5 and +3 on attack. It is good to whiff for meter, has frame advantage and also in my opinion the best poke to punish whiffed moves into your super.

df + fierce start up of 9 frames. Good to use at max distance. If you use it too close and someone blocks it, it leaves you punishable at -16.

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Anti-airs:

This is one of blankas strongest areas. He has great AA options charge or no charge.

-rc blanka ball
Beats every smalljump/jump in clean. Arguably the best anti air option for Blanka.

-rc electricity
Can be done off whiffed short or jab. Beats everything clean and when blanka has no charge.

-vertical blanka ball
Can be used when players are jumping in from an angle. Beats alot of jump in’s (Chun-li jump short will be able to beat that consistently if it hits the ball as cross up) and is also a good option for people who can’t rc.

-jump up fierce
Can anyone say priority? With proper timing this knocks out pretty much everything air vs air and with a startup of only 2 frames, this is extremely fast and dependable.

-crouching fierce
5 frame start up that beats alot of jump in’s coming from an angle, a good option against big characters (sagat) especially when you have no charge.

-jump back fierce
Can be used against characters that have fast, high jump ins. Kang also mentioned that it’s very safe against people who like to jump in empty with cc activations.

-any level 3 blanka supers
Basically a free super if they jump in while you are charged and have meter. Would be a good idea to use the kick super against P or K groove. Not gonna bother posting about the shout super because it’s rarely used. Only time I saw it used was on wake up by sanford in order to counter blanka rc electricity.

punch: Does 5000 regularly and 6300 on counter hit.
kick: Assuming you connect all of the hits, it does around 6000 damage regularly and around 6384 on counter hit.

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Knockdown Mixups:

-Blanka has many ways to break down opponents simply because of his strong rc electricity offense. He can mix up opponents after knockdown down by whiffing electricity and then blocking, or just blocking right next to them after a run/dash/blanka ball. This can be an effective way of baiting parries or jd’s. If the opponent blocks then you can grab them and continue to mix up the offense. Just remember that the opponent can tech or grab you also so be sure to tech their grab if they decide to do something before you call the shots. Most people either block, mash on grab, or super anyways. You can use this to analyze an opponent and try to react coordingly. If someone likes to mash on grab alot you can try baiting whiffs by using command hop back or by jumping straight up before they wake up. You can hit the opponent with straight up roundhouse and connect his basic combo (cr. short, standing jab, [ball super level 2/3 or blanka ball (see section bball punishers)]) or just activate. Also you want to rule your options out. If your opponent has full cc meter or has an anti air super you may not want to jump up. If your opponent wakes up consistently with rcs everytime then that’s a different story.

-uses of command hop :lk::mk::hk:
You can mix up your electricy game with the command hop. Being able to time your opponent’s wake up is key. If done too late they there can be severe consequences. It’s fairly easy to cross up your command hop once you know the distance of the command hop. Mix it up with dashes or run to command hop to either stay in front or cross up. Also note that if your opponent is in the corner and you are player 2 you can still cross up using the glitch.

Command hop can also be rc’d and command hop backward has full body invincibility without rc. It can be used to keep distance between a character, or to run away and build meter. It’s also an effective way to bait sakura’s cc. You can dash or run in close to sak then quickly command hop back. People love activating against any blanka other than n-blanka.

-super cross up
Random supers are not a very good option especially since this super if blocked can have consequences but doing it correctly can be ambiguous and hit your opponent. Knowing the speed of the blanka ball super is really key. It’s pretty much the only way you can use this. There are ways to use the level 1 to cross up for example off bite grab you can roll and then do a lvl 1 and cross up with that.

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Blanka Ball Punishers:

-There are some attacks and supers that can punish a blanka ball even on reaction to getting hit! You don’t want to make a mistake of landing a free combo into blanka ball if your opponent is using rock and can deal the damage right back to you with a level 3 after you land. Hibiki gets a free slash after every happy meal. Cammy can retaliate with a level 3 cannon drill. Assuming you use blanka’s bread and butter, Guile or Balrog can keep his charge and counter hit with level 3.

-Keep in mind that the ones posted above are just some that came to mind that can punish a blanka ball even when it connects. Alot of other punishing maneuvers also have to do with spacing because if you connect a blanka ball while your back is facing close to the corner there are alot more situations where you can be heavily punished.

-When a blanka ball is blocked you can add all of the above plus alot more supers to the list. Sagat standing foward always hits, standing fierce can hit depending on speed of ball and also spacing, fireballs level 1/2/3 all succesfully hit. Ryu level 3 fireball connects… Chun-li walk up strong to super, Cammy round house, Yamazaki roundhouse, Sakura Roundhouse, Ken blocks high and counter hits with foward + roundhouse, there’s alot more but you should get the picture by now.

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Retaliate:

-You can punish alot of blocked moves with a super. This is not really character specific because tons of people can punish these but I’ll list some common stuff alot of people abuse.

Bison short scissor kicks (2 blocked hits) can be punished with cr. short (4 frame startup) into ball super level 2/3. Watch for it if opponents do not know the proper spacing while using this move.

Hibiki slash can be punished when blocked with a level 3 ball super as long as it is not blocked from max range. Even when you block shorts into slash it’s punishable. Also note that if your opponent successfully connects shorts into slash you can still punish it as long as you were able to keep your charge. It’s not easy sometimes to hold the charge after you get hit, but you can definately successfully punish this.

Edit: I’m not a hibiki player but I talked to my boy smoothcat about it. If a hibiki player uses cr . short short short jab into strong slash then you cannot punish it because the jab pushes you out of range. But if any scrub hibiki’s use shorts into slash just remember you can take advantage of it.

Random Blanka balls + punch super… everyone should know this already.

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Random Tips:

-Blanka can easily build meter with whiff rc electricity from full screen or just use simple whiff cr. fowards. If someone jumps in you got all those options posted above.

-His alpha counter is absolutely terrible. There is really no good reason to do this unless you are at very low health and don’t want to get killed by chip death.

-For anyone having difficulty with rc electricity I started a thread about it in general discussion and even recorded movie files that may help.
http://www.shoryuken.com/forums/showthread.php?p=2356726#post2356726

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Matchups that may give you trouble:

Generally blanka can win any of his matchups after all he’s top tier for a reason but I feel that there are alot of matchups that can give him trouble.

-Hibiki: Defenses are very strong so it’s very hard to get in. Best to just turtle in this match up unless you have A groove meter because that gives him a free offense boost considering he doesn’t need to have charge in order to create damage… Jab blanka balls + RC elec can help you get in and hope that you get a knock down. Your offense level is increased drastically on knockdowns.

-Chun-li: Her offense and ticks can be hard to fight. Generally offensive chun-li’s will get you into her spinning bird trap and it can be hard to get out of. Watch out for SBK traps to counter hit rc lightning kick setups also. Make sure you anti air accordingly and keep distance between her. Jump up fierce is a great option against her.

2

cr.lk is an excellent poke, comes out faster than cr.mk, and gives better frames. range is slightly shorter than cr.mk, but still an excellent poke.

vega is also a difficult match up. cr.mp keeps you from doing dashing mixup silliness, and st.rh and jump fp are excellent anti air’s against blanka.

i personally hate the eagle matchup. All his normals will beat all of your pokes. He can cross you up with jumping rh if you’re crouching, and out zone you with his poke.

sak is also a bad match up. Her CC is free on any blanka, AC’s won’t work, and hop back sometimes work, depending on the distance between blanka and sak.

3

A or N Blanka is a must against A-Sak unless you have pedophile level JDing skills. From the looks of it, C-Blanka isn’t going to cut it anymore at high levels. Even solid C-Blanka players like Arturo etc… getting stupidly cheesed by random meat grinder.

more…

Use your d.HK sweep against Hibiki all day. It’s your most dominate poke against her as your leg goes under her s.MP and d.MP.

If you have low jump, it’s extremely hard for Hibiki to get around your low jump HK even when she has roll cancel. If you’re raged in K and pressuring her with low jumps, she sure as heck isn’t going to risk throwing out a random hcf+K counter as that leaves her WAY open to empty low jump, d.LK, s.LP xx fuck yo couch.

Hibiki d.HP is usually the best counter to a low jump, but her distancing skills really need to be on point to not whiff it and give you a free sweep/d.HP.

4

o shit the china brothers making threads lol

2 frame jump hp is the stupids shit ever, and dont forget kids abuse low jump hk it wins

5

:rofl: Damn :tup:

6

s.rh works well as early anti-crossup.

s.mp works sometimes on far jumpins, use sparingly.

Also don’t forget the elite c.lk, rc electricity anti-air, which goes into activate into jump hps into death.

Advancing jab is surprisingly effective against some fatter chars, use it.

Standing HP may look punishable, but people can’t connect c.mk after blocking it. Parry that shit.

Can someone teach me how to do the CC guardcrush? The one which goes like df.hp, df.hp, df.hp, hp electricity x3. I’m pretty inconsistent with it, is there a way to make sure I trigger off the electricity when I’m right next to the opponent for maximum chip and crush?

7

good info… my only question is, how can you recommend rc vertical ball as a good option for people who can’t rc???

8

That was a misprint. I meant to say that if you can’t rc then vertical ball is still an option.

9

very nice Glory, and your vid was good. love that stick.

10

very good info in here so far, i’ll contribute also…

-against chun li’s SBK trap, remember that blanka’s standing jab comes out in 2 frames. chun li is left at -2 after all strengths of her SBK, so she is forced to block that standing jab. that solves that problem. OR if the chun li player goes into the SBK trap that doesn’t combo (ie anything NOT close standing fierce into SBK), KKK back hop away twice, and RC ball/super while she’s spinning.

-against chun li in general, the less you use your RC electricity, the better. decent/smart chun players will wait for you to spark, then standing strong to super.

-STOP DOING RC ELECTRICITY ON WAKEUP. back in the day when people couldn’t do it well, it was still cool to do to show off your skill or something. but now that everybody knows how to punish it, you’re putting yourself in risky situations by doing wakeup RC’s. just block and look for throws instead, that’s better 99% of the time.

-level 1 direct lightning supers are very good because they’ll trade the majority of the time, and the trade is heavily in your favor. mainly a plus for N-groovers.

-i’d say THE MOST IMPORTANT THING that blanka players need to do is mix things up more. blanka is a very seemingly straight forward character. adding tick throws is extremely important to blanka’s game. for example, instead of doing crossup forward into electricity like every other blanka, try to get the crossup, duck, then throw. more damage, and your opponent isn’t used to it, plus there’s setups afterwards.

-low jump helps a bunch in blanka’s trouble matches, ie chun li, eagle, hibiki, and yamazaki. utilize low jumps correctly (by correctly, i mean on reaction to someone throwing a fireball or NOT in patterns), and your blanka will improve.

-use standing fierce more, it’s a great and under-used poke. it’s safe also, since you’re only at -3.

-HELP W/ THE YAMAZAKI MATCHUP? that’s giving me trouble nowadays for some reason. that standing RH is too good for some reason. any advice?

peace

PS- I <3 N-blanka

11

Glory can’t beat any non-Xbox Yamazaki player. A million dollars versus VDO. Bet it! :badboy:

My friend found a gimmicky tactic you might find useful, PPB. When perfectly distanced from the front, Blanka’s j.HP will cleanly stuff both Yamazaki’s far s.MP and d.HP anti-airs.

If you have a level 3 handy, Yamazaki can’t jump on you at all. Especially with that evil j.MK he has. Practice supering Yama’s jump until you can do it every time. You can bait Yama into jumping at you by faking that you lost your charge. Whiff a standing attack while still holding back or stand up and walk back a little. Doesn’t work against good players but it can’t hurt to try it or least show that you’re threat with your anti-air super skills.

Don’t be afraid to jump at Yama. Even using your j.MK and j.HK at the right angles, it can be really difficult for Yama to anti-air correctly. (Won’t work well against P-groove though… find something else to use against that.) Good players don’t do random slashes too often, but an anticipation jump in counters that.

d.HP if Yama is whiffing RC sand kicks to build meter. Practice the timing so you’re hitting Yama when his invincibility has run out. Slide also works.

Slide against the Yama roundhouses. It makes the opponent think you’re a scrub and get jump happy on you. You don’t slide next time and punish the jump on reaction with something nasty like a CC or super.

Super secret Chinese-only mixup:
-dash, RC electricity

The other guy catches on and starts throwing you out of the RC…
-dash, s.LP xx HP electricity

Piano it. Just omit the LK you usually press as well during your LP. Jabs are faster than throws.

That’s all I have at the moment. Get Arturo to post if you can make him willing to do it. He plays both Yamazaki and Blanka.

12

LVL 3 Lightning Crossup Properties -

There is a two frame window in which this is totally unblockable. This works because the hitframe for the super is so fat that it overlaps both sides of the character. If this is timed correctly, you should see Blanka and the character both fly vertically into the air at the exact same time.

13

wait what? You’re saying the DL can be unblockable?? Oh shit if that’s true, that’s pretty crazy although two frames is not a lot. I doubt it’s very game breaking anyway. Anyone do s.fierce or cr.fierce into DL? In K groove it does a lot of damage but the only problem is landing the fierce. The solution? I figure cross up mk s/cr. fierce into DL works.

Oh and what popbolo said about the level 1 DLs is true…I almost won this match against my friend once who was using N Blanka and I was using N Sagat. I got a knockdown and then I tried cross up lk…and then I got killed with a level 1 Dl, how embarassing.

Lastly, I found a really nice…um I dunno “technique” for Blanka in this match vid I saw. This guy used C Blanka and he was playing K Maki. He did cr.jab, KKK hop, elec, cr.jab KKK hop elec. It was pretty smart. Oh and isn’t the Rolling super good as a wake up against RC 360s? It gets you in the air so that someone like Honda (who’s basically the only char that’s used for 360s) can’t hit you with the 360. Plus Honda will get hit since the invincibility runs out. I thought of this because I saw a Sanfrod Vs Nestor match video and Sanfrod tried a wake up lvl 2 DL but Nestor used RC 360 and the whole thing whiffed.

14

Mmkay…

A Blanka vs. A Sakura.

Wtf is Blanka suppose to do in this matchup?

Sakura could just use st. Rh and jump RH to keep away and runaway. Yet she could just randomly walk up to Blanka and activate. She could even just do walk up jabs to mix up throws and counter hits.

15

Eh, the crossup super is a gimmick anyways. I use it but it won’t work 100% of the time. The different character wakeup times and the fact that C can tactical recovery on it will screw up your timing.

But damn, the “OOOOHs” you get when you land it is enough for me to just keep doing it.

Now, the age old matchup question:
What do I do against C/K Sagat? I know s.lk beats out most of Blanka’s pokes and j.RH is good against Blanka and blanka can’t block s. lp. Basically I know what Sagat can do to Blanka but I never learned what Blanka can do against it.

16

You can do s.MP with Blanka against Sagat. That and d.HP are easily the most useful tools Blanka has in this matchup. At max range, the s.MP beats Sagat s.LK clean. At max range, even if Sagat punishes your whiffed Blanka d.HP with his d.HP, Sagat is too far away to link a super afterwards. Up close, mashing d.LK and doing some block string/counter hit string with random s.MP’s, d.MK’s, and d.HP’s are all you need. Sagat can’t do anything about it other than lose half his guard bar every time he lets you in like that.

A good way to get in with Blanka is to super jump MK from half screen when Sagat has meter. Sagat will see how obvious that jump is and try to anti-air you with his high tiger super. Blanka’s jump is so gimmicky however that it’s impossible for the Sagat super to hit properly at that range. It’s impossible for Sagat to use his “cross-up” super input either as Blanka is still coming from the front. Sagat’s super whiffs, and you get some free hits in with Blanka. Sagat needs to use jump back HK or Tiger Uppercut to anti-air you when you do this, but yeah, when Sagat players have meter, that’s definately not what they’re looking to do when you jump at them.

The other way to get in with a jump is a walk forward first, and then jump right on top of Sagat with j.HK. This is quite hard for Sagat to react to, since you’re jumping at a time when Sagat usually wants to walk up and poke you. Walk forward, jump forward, early j.HK is a staple of Blanka scrubs versus Sagat players everywhere. Learn this and love it.

Don’t do Sigley tactic of random super as the other guy gets up. Just don’t do it. I don’t care how many ohhs and ahhs you get. If the other guy blocks right, he can hit you afterwards, and comboing the super or doing it after a guard break is much more rewarding anyway. Don’t do it at all. The only ohh you’re going to get from me is me laughing at you.

17

^ I concur. Just save your rage for some electricity chip damage.

18

sigh, blanka crossup super is good (its not random).
firstly, you can mix it up to crossup or not crossup. against sagat its not as good because he can punish you if he blocks it correctly. there are 4 outcomes for crossup super mixup on sagat.

  1. you hit him from the front (safe)
  2. you hit him from the back (safe)
  3. he blocks from the front, you go into the usual bounce back animation after a connected super. NOT safe if sagat has meter, he can high tiger cannon you in the face
  4. he blocks from the back, you bounce straight up right next to him. again NOT safe even if he doesnt have meter, he can just combo you when u land.

summary: if you have lots of life and sagat doesnt have meter, 3/4 outcomes are safe so why not? the risk/reward is in your favor.
If you want to save the rage for something else, throw them. 3 raged throws does about the same damage as a super if not more AND you get the crossup setup (mp regular ball) after a throw.

this of course all applies to kgroove blanka’s gameplan. for c-blanka, you have to think about if crossup super is worth the meter or if another character can use the meter better (ie chun li/ken)

19

Yeah cross up super is best for K Blanka because you’re going to lose the meter anyway (if you’re like really low) but if you’re in a groove like C or N then I would not risk it, especially not at the beginning of the match.

20

Now, the super trick is the hop crossup super. Thats just way too good. Im sure you wont know which way it’ll hit so your opponent sure as hell won’t.

Crossup super is very situational for Blanka. When you’re low on meter in K sure, go for it. But if you just got it. I’d think twice. It also comes down to setups for the crossup super and if they’ll expect it or not. After a punch throw, its basically easier to expect the super coming rather than say… after an antiair slide. I have other setups for the X-up super but I don’t want to give them away yet.