I realized that a few months ago, and was like ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
PSN is not the right place to progress i think, too much delay, lag… do things that require precision like AA, links, piano input is really hard in PSN, it’s cool just for fun i think.
charting stuff out is so tiresome.
I think to win at high levels blanka has to exploit the dumb stuff that he has as much as possible. The thing is I don’t think he has enough dumb stuff. I have been trying to find more stuff though. I have a few ideas.
I was underrating kara throw for a long time, not realizing how character specific the usefulness was. I think if you can do kara backthrow in strings vs. characters you can unblockable it’s a great tool. kara backthrow is awkward to execute though.
What’s the deal with the kara throw ?
What you say is right, make me sad in Vanilla when i seen Blanka top japs wins always with the ultra cross up, so pathetic this character is.
basically since every character has a different sized throwable hurtbox in comparison to their pushbox(how deep you can stand inside them or whatever), and different pushback on normals, different strings can lead to a kara throw depending on the character you are facing.
Some characters you can do short, short, kara throw, or cr.mk, kara throw cleanly and not have to take a step which speeds up the time.
Every damn thing with Blanka is character specific.
haha, i know exactly what you mean ves!
dont know how to put my fingers to hit LP~LK neither…
i found the perfect spot to plink LK~LP but the other way is so hard to do!
I use index and middle for lp~lk and i use thumb for lk~lp
I can kara throw like 10x in a row now no issue.
doesnt work for me… changed the buttons
HP MP LP
HK MK LK
Won a tournament in seattle with blanka. Used vega for two matches in winners finals to counter balrog. Unfortunately, only grand finals was recorded, me against a dhalsim, which i took 3 straight. When i get link i will post it. My overwll play was mediocre but i guess good enough. Against dhali, punishing his standig fierce with blanka low rh is too nuts.
Thanks for the jolt head enlightenment, explained a lot!
Dont give up on blanka bc he is fun to piss and bite people with.
Good stuff Josh! I’ve always liked your Blanka.
I was reading your old posts about kara throws recently and I felt I was sort of too dismissive before. I didn’t realize how much charcter specific knockback and stuff there was. I had been using it in like 2 specific setups, but I think that if I can figure out what characters short short kara throw works on it becomes a better tool. What sucks is that it is character specific and block/hit character specific.
Its all good, thanx ves. I played like two guiles, and they werent that great, but i didnt even try hard cuz i just did unblockable all day.
Destroyed a bison, i play bison and know the character well.
Beat an ibuki, have tons of matchup knowledgr there as well.
Winners finals was a sagat, which lost to blanka, they countered to balrog, i lost, then vega won 2 straight on balrog. Balrog - vega is fun/easy matchup to me, so thats my rog counter. Could have picked dhalsim too, but too much work.
Finals was me vs dhalsim, and it was a fast beat’em up, just face bashin all around.
Blanka standing fp was beating dhali standig shorts and slides. I have a lot of dhali knowledge cuz of a smart hawaii dhalsim.
Cant stress how awesome low rh is to punish whiffed fp from dhali.
I hereby nominate ves as coolest blanka player ever for thr knowledge fountain that he is!
And you have good matchup experience vs. Guile from playing Dagger G, so you have the spacing to be able to get in to just mash unblockable. Did they try to FK out? I’ve been working on doing the high version when people start to FK cause dash into another b.throw is awesome.
What do you think of the Rog matchup now? I don’t think it is that bad anymore. I like Vega vs. Rog too though. I did that a lot when I was playing Vega, I’m way out of practice with Vega now though.
sweep vs. sim is so good. when shglbmx told me to start using that I was like ohhhhhhhhhhhh.
Also thanks!
Guys, sim is my hardest blanka matchup by far(mind you I am still on Vanilla PC) - I am going to note your tips you just left, but is there somewhere I can find a good matchup vs sim thread for blanka?
I’ll ask Josh P if he’ll help me with a Sim write up
If the finals r put up that will b a good starting point, i made mistakes but u will get the idea. Other thoughts is when dhali is waking up always go for ambiguous electricity multi tick setups. I think i got on avg 5 or 6 tick damage, so if block wrong would do 100+ dmg, if dhali blocks right tick is still like 50 pts plus continued pressure
Ill write something up, but only after peeps
Can c the vid cuz its something i can build off of
Rog matchup is the same i think. I could have just played it out and may have won, but im a counter picking sob, so thats my style. Old school west coast counter play, i was taught by the best
Flash kick against blanka is funny. I would jump in with early roundhouse and stuff flashkicks. I really was just fuking around, didnt try too hard bc i know the match really well. Unless i hopped to get in, my backthrow setups dont allow for FK bc no charge time. But i was really just hoppin into their face and throwing, didnt even need to do the low fp footsie game much. And they did waaaayyy too many sonic booms.
Guile match just got too easy fer blanka, dagger g and i both agree, and dagger is easily top 3 or higher guile in the country
i love the sim MU!
what works really great vs sim limb keep away/zoning is LP Ball! …wait…what? yeah, LP Ball beats or trades (in your favor) with limbs and is not punishable on the right distances I really do spam this move, cuz if sim pokes, he gets hit, if he doesnt you get in! also, you can slide FB! so you can make him fear to to anything at all
fought a sim at a tournament who was supposed to be really good! i won every single round using this strat and the sim player looked really pissed of! I think he thought I would be an easy win…! IMO the MU is 5/5 cuz Blanka has an answer to everything sim does…
Reading all the online complaining about the Yun Army, I find it funny how the Blanka community is largely unaffected. I admit I get a bit of an guilty pleasure watching people like Filipino Champ who are Serious players get bodied by Yuns like it was nothing, because… well, now they know what it’s like for us. Blanka mainers have been having to deal with horrible matchups from the start of SF4 (Sagat in Vanilla, Boxer and Dictator in Super, etc.) Honestly, Yun isn’t THAT hard to deal with… any more so than Sagat or Balrog, anyway.
I also remember when top players were laughing about how weak Hakan was; like he was a waste of a character slot. So Ono-san gives us a new character that is designed to hang with the top tiers. So now people bitch about THAT as well. They’re just pissed at having to deal with something Blanka players regard as a way of life. Pfffftt.
I for one hope they DON’T rebalance Yun. Not without buffing Blanka along with everyone else, anyway.
rereading the labwork thread, my creativity in exploded in January, I came up with so much good stuff. I feel dumb now, I haven’t come up with anything good in months. haha.