So I was kind of down about my finish at sf25th, but I haven’t been putting the amount of time in that I need to be successful as of late. I’ve been playing about 10 hours per week at max for the last few months.
Instead of being negative I’m just going to rededicate myself. Grinding old tech to get better at it, grinding new tech to get new advantages, and I’m going to play more long sets against top players to get more matchup experience so that I’m always ready no matter what and can work on adapting faster.
I can’t expect to beat people who put more time/effort in especially when I don’t feel like I’m especially talented.
Gonna probably take a break the rest of this week for the most part as I have plans/work I need to do, but new labwork stuff should be coming out pretty soon.
Ves i personally think that you have a mental issue with your game. Whether it’s because you used to be sick(or still are) but you also seem to break down mentally in games for whatever reason. This is just from playing you a few times and talking to you. I get the impression that you aren’t mentally strong enough. You have game knowledge and great spacing. But i think you need to up the intangibles one of them being mental stability and stamina. I think this is one part of gaming that a lot of people don’t give enough credit to. It’s SUPER important. This can be done with what you’re suggesting. Longer bigger sets with strong players. More grinding.
Yeah for sure I agree, my mental game is bad. I suck at making reads and I suck at getting into my opponent’s head. I just don’t know how to practice that.
I play way better in casuals or online than I do in tournaments generally because generally tournament conditions are ass. When it’s hot as fuck and my hand is too sweaty to slide, or they won’t tell me when I’m playing and I haven’t eaten for 6 hours, or it’s PS3(lol) it’s kind of difficult to do your best.
The more I play the less mistakes I make so I end up keeping my composure a lot better. Thats pretty much what I need to do my best. If I’m happy with how I’m playing no matter how strong the opponent I tend to do better. When my execution/spacing starts to slide so does my mental game.
I still don’t really get how to make reads unless someone has a horrible habit though, which start to disappear as players get stronger. I can read weaker players like a book and manipulate them into making bad decisions, but I couldn’t get vangief to jump when I whiffed jabs or w/e when I saw him doing that all day in casuals and during the pool. shrug.
I always use custom 6 buttons but i’m getting another stick designed and thinking 8 button just because, but i don’t even know how you guys do it. (i should probaby learn).
if you’re making a custom I suggest you get the viewlix layout as 6 buttons then have a 7th button as back next to jab so you can plink jab for like jab jab punish, and then have the PPP next to HK. SUPER BLANKA STICK.
After watching Canada Cup, and the numerous blankas, frankly, the ones I saw on stream (really wish I could have seen that blanka vs infiltration matchup, that must have been awesome) were most all complete and absolute trash. Except for Lapchi beating F. Champ that one set, and sadly throwing away the second set with a thousand hops, I really felt like the blanka play was so below what I think it should be at that I’m just frustrated with SF4 in general.
I think what really burst my bubble was that KimLegend played worse than I could have ever hoped for. I mean, just absolutely shit. Could have been tournament inexperience, could have been he was drunk, I’m just not sure. He had moments of brillience, where he would just control space and push people into the corner, but for the most part it was just haphazard random blanka bullshit. That makes me really sad because I had previously held KimLegend in high regard. I think kimlegend lost EVERY SINGLE MONEY MATCH on stream, and badly too, 3-0, 3-1, etc. He got completely bodied by F. Champ (3-0), and that Utah Abel beat him 3-1. He just…didnt have the rigor/experience/knowledge that I had expected.
Ugh, I guess im just saying that it sucks when a blanka you thought was really good just gets completely ass raped. I mean, kimlegend was a non-factor in the team tournament. Sure, he got a pretty combo on PR Rog, but who gives a shit when u still lose, and lose badly in the third round?
Not to mention that Ground U2 chip on Bonchan’s Sagat after elec KD was pretty stupid.
I was pretty sure the chip from the 2nd wave wasn’t going to kill a high health character like Sagat, especially without a full revenge meter, but KimLegend got lucky that Bonchan didn’t know that and tried to jump over that setup (wich must be blocked, there’s no other option at that range).
The poop is that I was actually going to give SF4 a shot just to play Gen a few months ago. Now I’m probably not just because I don’t want to be a bandwagoner.
Blankas that can’t do electricity properly are a huge pet peeve of mine. Electricity is one of Blanka’s best tools, if you can’t find a way to do FP Electricity consistently find a new character. Smashing LP over and over again does nothing!
I was surprised that noone at CCup was using FA to counter EX Rainbow. It’s understandable that they won’t do so to counter a reversal but it seems like they let Blanka get away with it every other time.
That’s not really easy to do because FA’s tend to widen a character’s hit box so it’s not easy to target the front of the opponent and land close enough to grab them. Also remember that EX Rainbow has 10f ground recovery, so even if you do manage to land close enough you usually can’t throw them unless they released the FA after you hit the ground, and even if they don’t release, they can still backdash away.
Usually it’s a lot safer to just do jump back + Fierce against EX Rainbow in the corner. Some characters that have a good cr.HP or similar move can use that too, like PR Rog was doing everytime.
But a lot of good players doesn’t have enough matchup knowledge against Blanka, since he’s such a horrible character anyway, so why bother?
It is pretty amazing how often ex rainbox roll in general hits the opponent, even top notch opponents. I guess this is why it is used so much, even though it is pretty low reward for a great deal of risk. The fact that ex rainbow can now go backwards really was a huge buff that was never mentioned in the AE change logs.
