Tactics in Chun Li vs. O.Sagat
Here are some of my old notes on this match; maybe someone will find them helpful. Hopefully the info is all correct. I’ve purposefully kept this to “X beats Y” tactics and stayed away from the strategical questions of this match, since I’m a lot less sure about those. Also, I suck at this game.
Anti-Air
LK Upkicks are hard to use in this match, because Sagat has to be very close. The problem is that you can try to hit his jump attack with it from farther out, but just go launching harmlessly into the air, because his j.HK has fairly withdrawn hittable areas – you can’t reach them with the move and you just go through him.
Anti-air super will work and you should definitely do it if you can. However, I personally find the timing such that it’s very difficult to land this for all the hits.
J.up LK will stuff anything he tries air-to-air. I learned this from NKI in this thread a few pages back. However, after observing it for a while, I’m not completely sold on this move… It has considerable startup (6 frames), so you’re probably going to have to just guess when he’s jumping. Guessing wrong and flailing around with straightjumps isn’t the safest thing to do, and given that it does poor damage, the risk/reward on this seems iffy. It also has mediocre range, and if Sagat jumped from farther out, you can both miss each other in the air entirely and then he lands while you’re still vulnerable on your way down. Play around with it and see what what you think; maybe you’ll like it better than I do.
c.MK anti-air trip is possible (from farther away, hitting him as he lands with the very tip), but you will need a surgeon’s precision to use this, as there is almost no room for error with the horizontal range. Unless you are an expert, I don’t think this is worth messing with.
LP fireball done late and on reaction to his jumping from farther away works, and it’s one of the few anti-airs that are consistent from that range. You will lose the damage trade but gain the knockdown.
J.up HK is one of the most reliable counters if your reflexes and anticipation are good. Use it from fairly close, at a range where he will get hit by it whether he’s attacking or not.
Jumping his low fireballs
If you jumped his fireball from full screen, you are only going to be able to get one attack in before he is pushed away. Now, a lot of Chuns are used to just jumping with MK all the time, but I think better here is the j.HP, as it is Chun’s strongest attack that will hit Sagat’s low-Tigering arms.
If you jumped his fireball from ~3/4ths screen, you’ll land closer and will be able to tack on an extra attack. I believe the best sequence here is j.HP followed by c.HK. Normally that would be an extremely difficult link, but it’s not too bad here because of the way the game mechanics work – for jumping attacks, hit stun lasts a lot longer if the opponent is crouching, and Sagat throwing a low Tiger counts as crouching. So the timing isn’t too bad. After you knock him down with the c.HK, you can continue the pressure with an immediate auto-safejump (see Shenanigans section).
If you get caught in the air, then in my experience you should try j.HP and see what happens. I’ve looked at virtually all of the interactions between each of her jumping attacks and every Sagat anti-air, and I won’t bore you with the details, but the j.HP generally comes out the best. The priority is high enough that you can actually beat the Tiger Uppercut cleanly from certain angles, like when you jump from far away and he isn’t close enough. Another example is against his s.far HP – you will beat it cleanly if you “land on” its hitting frame, or if he attacked a bit later, you still get a hit trade.
Don’t get me wrong, because as far as I know, if Sagat plays perfectly then there is nothing you can do to avoid being anti-aired cleanly. That said, j.HP gives you your best chance of a good outcome.
Shenanigans & Pressure Notes
Automatic safejump is possible anytime after you land a c.HK, as long as he didn’t get knocked into the corner (where he “sticks” for a moment and it messes up the timing). Simply jump at him immediately after the c.HK lands; you should be holding up-towards as the move is recovering so she jumps as soon as she can. It takes a while to get in the habit of thinking, “OK, if this hits then I jump immediately,” but this tactic will yield tons of free initiative if you can use it.
Free crossup after throw is another built-in pressure sequence, as long as you didn’t throw him into the corner (where, again, he “sticks” for a moment and the timing gets ruined). You know he can’t tech your throw because he’s playing an old character, and you can just hold up-towards. If he does a reversal Tiger Uppercut as he rises, it will miss behind you.
Crossing Sagat up can be hard if you aren’t gifted with good timing, because his shape is weird and you need to kick earlier in the air if you want the crossup to connect, leaving you less time to combo your next attack. If you don’t want to try the 5-frame c.MK, then you have a number of 4-frame options:
s.close HP isn’t really appropriate here, unless you’re one of those freaks who can buffer lightning legs after it, but even then it’s questionable.
s.close MK with a buffered MK lightning legs gets you chip damage. Maybe after you do the jumping MK crossup, you can just start slamming on the button, but I tend to goof it up and get kara-cancelled moves sometimes.
s.close LK can be a tick setup.
s.close LP is cute, either as a tick setup or into some oddball combos: crossup j.MK, s.close LP, s.close LP, c.LP xx LK lightning legs, which isn’t as hard as it sounds. To get the gist of it, practice the simplified version: s.close LP, c.LP xx LK lightning legs. The way you do it is simply press LP~LK and keep mashing on both of those buttons while holding down.
