Just wanna mention
Does anyone use c.LP as a poke/footsie tool? I have been using it a bit against certain match ups like Dee Jay for example, I find it a pretty good tool to use against his slide.
-LAU
I use it a lot in the blanka mirror, it has a great hitbox.
practicing stuff, taking 2 weeks off, then trying to do it in tournament is a bad idea
1-2 at wnf =/
Anyone got some tips with st.MP st.LP xx elec ? I can do it okay in training but it’s trickier in actual matches. And is there any plink for ultra ? Especially to link after overhead and cr.MK. Last one I promise : any cool resets setups somewhere ? I usually do EX ball cancel but it’s not that good regarding meter.
- Nope, it can be tricky just because you have to piano/slide a 2f link as opposed to just hitting/plinking a button but you just have to practice it.
- Yes. Disabling taunt and using 3p ~ hk works. Also you can end on downforward and plink PPP with lk but I find that one awkward.
- In my personal opinion, blanka does such little damage most of the time that it’s worth just going max all the time. I tend to limit myself to ex ball stuff in some situations and cr.mk hop stuff after a crumple if I don’t have ultra stocked etc.
Thanks for the advices.
Pumping iron reference?
Man, this board is so dead now - a bit sad 
I haven’t played SF4 in probably at least a couple months now, but looking forward to USF4 and playing again. I’m hoping there are more Blanka buffs that we haven’t heard about in the final build.
I lost my drive to improve, I just play hearthstone and darksouls now.
Can you give me the cliffs on why the following matchups are easy, I used to find chun sim yun and juri hard.
Also what makes guy ibuki and duds bad? (I found them to be bad matchups too but figured I just had no clue what I was doing)
Without unblockables where do you see guile?
chun - she’s meter dependent to shut down blanka and has few tools to open him up other than hanzanshu and dash grab. LP ball being safe when she’s not stocked means you can get a lead and sit. Also she has AA holes. This match will likely be much worse in usf4
Yun - st.mp&buffered elec destroy yun’s neutral divekick game, it’s hard to get good at those things though. Spaced EX/hp meaty elec will stuff/trade with non ex upkicks. This lets you get real pressure on knockdowns you don’t get a setup on. Post super unblockable would in theory help but getting super is tough. Hard to play matchup but still favorable.
juri - safeballable. can empty jump to bait aa and punish. hop over low fireballs. terrible reversals meaning you can get real pressure on all sorts of knockdowns. unblockable is inconsistent but possible.
Sim - U2 shuts him down hard. punishes teleports, b.dash, fireballs, and his oki setups. In neutral blanka can fight limbs with out of range lp ball/sweep/jab. sniper is punishable on hit. Jumping at sim is a mixup that favors BLANKA, so you can force situations. No real reversal helps you keep pressure up. This match is hard to play correctly but i farm filipino champ if I see him playing ranked for his points now.
ibuki - her normals interact awkwardly with blanka’s meaning he’s not able to properly fight with st.hp/st.mp/cr.mp, her cr.mp has so many active frames it beats your buttons and is incredibly hard to whiff punish. overhead also goes over a lot of buttons and she is +5. Good ball punish options. She does more damage and combos end in hard kd meaning it’s vortex time. U2 can shut down kunai options but then you’re not using u1(which you get an unblockable after). New unblockable tech helps somewhat but she’s hard to hit. I don’t like matches where I feel blanka loses neutral because he sucks at momentum meaning lots of neutral.
Dudley - blanka actually checks duds in neutral well with st.jab/cr.mk/sweep the issue here is mostly punish related. duds has great punish options(for ball/rainbow/blocked normals even) and top tier punish damage on top of that, hitting 10 st.jabs doesn’t matter when you eat a buffered st.hk xx ex mgb once. blanka can’t exploit his meh wakeup as often as most characters. It’s mostly about damage tools wise blanka wins neutral.
Guile - with changes to both characters it’s probably even.
Thanks man, can you explain how to jump at sim so it favours you? I always get b.hk to the chops.
Are there other characters you can jump freely at and beat or avoid anti airs?
The problem is most blanka’s are conditioned to jump with j.hk, but it’s actually blanka’s 4th best jumpin(!) for beating AA overall and 3rd in neutral situations. vs sim and most characters your primary neutral jumpins should be j.hp and j.mp.
J.mp’s hitbox extends outside the hurtbox. Think sakura j.hp but shifted 90~ degrees so it’s right and a little down instead of down
(ignore the yellow nubs outside the box they are her hands not hitbox)
so lining these up you can see that the difference between her vertical j.hp hitbox to hurtbox difference and blanka’s horizontal difference is quite small. blanka has both a quite smaller vertical hurtbox and hitbox compared to her horizontal which also helps dodge some AA’s.
So the basic thing here is that j.mp a really good jumpin with a different use but similar, though slightly worse hitbox of one of the best jumpins in the game. This coupled with blanka’s small empty jump hurtbox allows a lot of options if it’s used at max range, it’s actually good enough to beat moves that are actually invincible! Sometimes j.mp just wins other times you can mixup between j.mp and empty jump then punish the whiffed anti air. If blocked you can hop, focus, wiggle kara throw, st.hp(DA GOD) or other normal, or just chill out. Max range is not that hard to setup either, it’s a tiny wiggle back of round start and there are knockdown setups(this one is deejay specific and beats all of his wakeup options, also demonstrates the mixup after blocking). J.mp as horizontal move is strongest vs vertical anti airs and weakest vs horizontal ones with strong hitboxes.
J.hp is the opposite it’s best frames are at startup(as an air to air) and at the end where the hitbox is down and blanka’s hitbox narrows, this makes it weaker vs vertical oriented AA(though it will trade with/stuff a lot of them) but a killer on horizontal based ones that are still strong enough to beat j.hk. Since these awesome frames are at the end of the animation it is a close range jumpin almost exclusively. If used on top of sim’s head it will beat b.hk/mp.
Once you’ve established that you can beat AA’s you can work in more deep j.hk for extra frame advantage.
Great post. Thanks man
The notion of farming someone cracked me up, especially someone as salty as FC, but if your main purpose was points, couldn’t FC counterpick with Seth?
His seth is booty and I’m really good at the matchup now. haven’t played his seth in forever but i’m confident against much stronger seths like tony now. Unblockables help
what do you guys do against a mashing cr.jab ryu? stops all my get ins and its annoying as hell.
stop hopping and jab balling instead of smacking him with st.hp?
ves pls upload some sim matches i tried to set up a j.hp vs sim in training mode and i could always b.mp it unless i anti aired late.
I play hearthstone now