video of me playing tanaka who is a beastly ryu up here in the Northwest. I made a lot of mistakes but here this it is. i ended up taking 3rd.
[media=youtube]EOCWvO39l5Q&feature=PlayList&p=915F50BA4DC0759A&index=5[/media]
DJ Vest is my favourite Blanka player right now. He’s got the right balance of dirty rushdown and evasive turtling. I think have the same mindset behind my game, and I definately want to see more of his vids to find out just where this type of Blanka is going.
I notice that when you incorporate the strengths of master turtle Blankas like Mizoteru and shglbmx, you incorporate the weaknesses as well - absolute turtling causes losses just as hard as it causes wins, and in matchups against frequent picks, the deciding factor seems to be about guessing right, and struggling to awkwardly make your way in when you guess wrong and pushed the clock. Having said that, it’s fantastic against impatient players that you can punish forever, but I’ve seen too many vids of Blanka’s holding down-back only to lose the lead to safe-pressure tactics and superior reaction time, forced to break into Sagat or Ryu’s fortress, or Rufus or Sim’s space control.
Equally, rushdown Blanka masters like Moval and Mullah use execution and play dirty in your face to get those wins, but too many of the frequent picks have Blanka beat at throw range, and when the losses come with this style, it’s from getting shut down up close (except Sim and Seth). Even with his awesome footsies, we all know what happens playing too close to anything with an EX-command grab or a Shoryu and two meters.
And ultimately, whether you rely on the coinflip ultra or not, both playstyles are being downloaded at an alarming rate. I’ve been searching for something new with Blanka, new tricks, new mindgames, new discoveries to evolve from, but the well has been dry for months. It’s only now that I’m seeing the real place to evolve to is to take the best of both successful Blanka styles and mix them the fuck up. Obviously play the matchup, and obviously hold the lead safely when you have it, but I’m thinking the flow of play needs to switch up from radical rushdown to clock-running on the fly to get Blankas winning tournaments.
yah nice post, i don’t actually play a rushdown blanka despite people thinking i do, i play a brickwall blanka mainly, i think the ONLY way to play blanka is to b able to play turtle brick and rush because in certain matchups one style simply wont work. vs sagat/ chun etc its soley brickwall, vs sim/vega/rufus(without meter) without meter etc its rushdown and vs blanka its turtle. Vs boxer or guile you have to play very weird very deliberate style that is too long to explain here but overall blanka doesn’t work for people if they can’t play rush turtle and footsie blanka.
There is room to improve with blanka, people still haven’t discovered his most damaging combos, people still play a templetised blanka vs all opponents which doesn’t work
There will be some new Mullah Vids up soon! His match against Ryan Hart was sick!! Defo agree with Mullah about people haven’t fully mastered the character yet. Even yesterday i heard something you could do with Blanka and i was fully shocked!
Share this shocking news with us 
having flashbacks of bad James Bond puns circa 1964
But i lost, even though i should have won, TU FADC… honestly its impossible not to eat this at some point in a match, even delayed throw tech loses if they use delayed TU. What can you do but get thrown or die!
What you chattin about? my 620 combo?
Mullah- Did you ever play TKK’s rog again where he actually will post the matches? Watching those would help me alot.
Most of the Rog’s I’ve played are good but not monstrous. I’m gonna be testin my Blanka here soon against some really good Rogs.
no, i played tkk’s rog before he started jumping around to other characters and beat him 2-0 the last 2 very convincingly. If you want to see the vids ask him to post them up, he obviously has them saved down. Back before i stopped playing i had the blanka rog matchup down pretty well, i really wasn’t afraid to play anyones rog perhaps i’ll do a tutorial vid if i can get some games in vs Zak as he plays a much better boxer than TKK. Playing in a tournament again yesterday got me back into the SFIV mood so i’ll probably getting back into shape in anticipation for ssfiv, even though i wont be playing blanka.
I like the Rog match too and am pretty comfortable with it.
I think chances are good that there won’t be much incentive for you to stick with Blanka in SSF4. From the things I’ve heard, it sounds like Capcom just plain doesn’t want Blanka to get any better. Hopefully I’m wrong, and things may change, but I’m also considering maining someone else and just keeping Blanka as an alt/backup.
An Ultra set up!
You had that match but i remember you going for lk lk to do a combo but you missed a link and he managed to pull of a TU which ultimately leads into ultra. I think it went like that anyways, just remember the last round when you were in controll. Its a shame i couldn’t get some casuals with you man but i had so much to do with the recordings and stuff whilst WGE was away 
[media=youtube]Gu3dYQxcQxw[/media]
Great play. I think most people know that match was yours.
From the same tournament
[media=youtube]DyolBfPeyHk[/media] Myself vs one of the best Chuns in the UK atm
[media=youtube]IDME5_ns3ZA[/media] Against Zak Bennet (Mullah’s team, he knocked us out )
Mizoteru at his turtley best against Mago (4m50s):
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9429529
(alt link: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm9429529)
vs 20k BP Sagat (4m05s)
vs Grandmaster Akuma (11:45s)
http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm9430378
(alt link: http://d.hatena.ne.jp/video/niconico/sm9430378)
Hanamaruki and Mizoteru win the 2v2 tourney. Mizoteru must have lost his card because he’s only on 36K BP with around 560 matches under his belt.
Love the combo at the three minute mark, and the ex up ball shortly after. Thought you had that round.
Nice matches.
Hey, can you tell Tanaka that Kevin (me - SaikyoStudent) from Davis said hi and that I dropped Rufus for Blanka. He should also stop by the Davis thread and tell everyone what’s been going on.
Thank you. I thought i had charge that last round to ex up ball his crossup, but i didnt.
Will do next time i see him
I might as well had been there. I tend to sing along with tina turner way too much in my spare time.
you changed your gameplan in round 2 of the first match really good. solid AA’s
I’m curious about those combo .Please enlighten me :rock: