His command grab doesn’t have great range. Also, Hugo can’t focus preemptively because mallet smasher can punish it from poke range. His pokes do have good range, but they all have substantial recovery. I think Elena has a hard time against grapplers in general though, with the exception of Hugo. It could be limited matchup experience of Hugo players or me so I’d be interested to see how things evolve.
Not sure how many of you guys have been implementing option selects with Elena but some of them are pretty good in some matches. I know she’s at a disadvantage for option selects since she doesn’t have any normals that chain into themselves, but you should still use them sometimes. I’ve only used a few but for the Dhalsim matchup you can do cr. Lk/cr. LP OS slide to punish forward teleports.
Any tips on how to execute those OS’s with no chains?
same way you do any os. The only difference is once you do the os a 2nd normal won’t come out. You’ll get the cr. Lk/LP and nothing else or crouching normal followed by os. Once I find more I’ll probably make a vid of them.
If poison does cr.mk to rekka you can focus the rekka and punish. You don’t even have to worry about the rekka being -4.
Having some real issues with Evil Ryu. Even scrubby ones just demolish me.
Looks like you can’t punish certain versions of the Axe Kick (M Axe Kick seems to always be safe, and since you can’t really tell the difference between normal versions, I guess just assume it’s always safe), but EX Axe Kick can be punished with standard BnB combos.
A useful trick for dealing with shitty Evil Ryus. You need good reflexes to pull it off though:
Input EX Scratch Wheel whenever you see Close HP.
Input Ultra 1 whenever you see Crouch HP.
- If he doesn’t cancel into a special, you’ll punish the recovery.
- If he cancels into LK Axe Kick you’ll auto-block it. Punish the recovery.
- If he cancels into any other Axe Kick or Red Fireball, the reversal will interrupt it.
- You’ll auto-block if he does a normal Fireball. If he’s close enough you can punish with Super.
It messes things up if he cancels into Tatsu or Teleport, but you don’t see that happening very often.
Useful info for the Yun matchup:
cr.MK goes under lunge (any version). When he’s on the ground at “that range”, just throw it out there.
Depending on the timing you’ll either hit him clean out of his lunge, or you’ll whiff cr.MK in front of it.
If the latter happens, Elena’s recovery will go clean under the lunge and you can punish it with a full point-blank combo.
Well, there’s another character that cr.LP, cr.LP, cr.MP xx EX Mallet Smash crosses up and whiffs on when done at point blank.
Sakura joins Juri in that. Could be other characters, I’ve tried it against a few others but couldn’t find another lucky escape artist. I’ve tried it on Dudley, Makoto, Ibuki, Elena, Chun Li, Cammy, Cammy 2, Poison, Viper, Gen, the Yun Yang Twins, and I’m sure many others and none of them escaped, but that’s all I remember testing.
Hey does anyone know what i should do against a shoto (especially sagat) when a match is coming down to the wire.
What i do is try to apply pressure but fail as i get DPed and lose, and if i back off im not sure if jumping fire balls will be safe, once he figures out im jumping and takes advantage of the floating jump and FADCs a fire ball and i eat a DP…
thanks in advance
Just keep ultra 2 focus absorb fireballs use healing fullscreen when you have 5 seconds. Try to AA as much as possible and press cr.mp. That’s my strategy; be lame as hell.
seems like the most logical thing to do lol, thanks for the advice
So I didn’t have time to check if this was Yun-specific or corner-specific or whatever-specific earlier today, but I had Yun in the 2P corner and, on several occasions, when I tagged him with EX Spin Scythe > EX Rhino Horn, if the EX Rhino Horn came out at a certain interval during the window in which you can connect it (usually later), the first hit of EX Rhino Horn (or, at least, the first hit of the move that hits Yun in this scenario–could be any of the hits except the last one) would slam Yun into the ground well before Elena finishes the move. I’ll try to take this into training mode later and see what kind of knockdown it is and if Elena can be punished for it (it looks like she can, but I could just be pessimistic, haha).
EDIT:
Okay, got to training mode and found some parameters for this.
What this is:
When comboing as Elena facing the corner, hitting a standing or crouching opponent with EX Spin Scythe > EX Rhino Horn can sometimes cause an opponent to get knocked down out of EX Rhino Horn earlier than anticipated.
When this happens:
- This occurs on Yun and Yang.
- This occurs in both corners.
- This happens on the second hit of EX Rhino Horn (the first hit connects, the second hit knocks down).
- This happens when EX Rhino Horn is done later during the window in which it can connect after EX Spin Scythe.
- This is a soft knockdown (techable).
- This gives the opponent a jab punish opportunity if teched.
Overall, I guess this isn’t like, ridiculous or super unfair, just make sure if you do EX Spin Scythe > EX Rhino Horn that you do your Rhino Horn early. The chances of the enemy teching this knockdown are very low. Elena can only be punished if the knockdown is teched (or if she dials something else in even after the opponent has fallen out and they’re still getting up from the ground). The opponent will be hitting the recovery of the EX Rhino Horn if the do punish it, so unfortunately there isn’t a way out if they tech this (somehow) and press a button.
I don’t feel confident making any guesses on good/bad matchups, but I REALLY struggle against Bison, Rose, and Chun-Li at the moment… especially Bison. I saw there were some notes in the first post for Bison, I’ll have to go into training mode and try some stuff out… anyone figure out a good gameplan vs Bison? I just get eaten alive by lk scissors/ex psycho regardless of what I try it seems. I need all the help I can get, I’ll probably have to play against a good M.Bison player this weekend, and it’s looking grim.
On the other hand, I’ve been having a lot of success against Sakura players, feels like a pretty good matchup.
EX RH goes through psycho crusher and os his teleport. Try to stay outside of scissor kick range.
I feel like how you approach this depends on the type of Bison player. The more balanced Bisons that typically spend lots of time charging are a bit easier, I think, because Bison’s footspeed is what really gives Elena problems when she’s positioning herself. The more aggressive Bisons that move forward and change their spacing quickly make the matchup super hard especially because Bison commands the ground so well. My advice is to be very patient on wakeup and during blocking. I feel like jumping is also a TERRIBLE idea for this matchup. You pretty much need to get the lead and sit on it since Bison is just a bit too strong on the ground for Elena to reliably take low risk swings at his lifebar. Force Bison to use his meter whenever you can and don’t waste any opportunities to whiff a Lynx Tail or Scratch Wheel to gain some meter on the side.
I like sweep over slide here just because the necessity for slide is not present unless you are punishing bad Psycho Crushers or U1 in which case, please use it. Can you sweep j.:hp:? I’ll have to check.
Crush his crouch techs with s.:hk: and b.:hk:. You have to make him want to burn the meter to get out.
Don’t let Bison jump in on you. Some of his best party starters are his jump-ins. Backdash plenty, even if you get hit during the aerial recovery, he has to move forward to capitalize (unless he’s in sweetspot range with s.:mp:), which is fine. If you pick his j.:hp: out of the air too much (not sure if Elena can, have to check that as well), he may start spacing j.:hk: or altering the jump timing. s.:mk: and c.:hk: help here.
Bison can be option selected for days. If you’re a player that uses/abuses option selects, then learn the anti-Bison OS sets so you can start taking away his options one at a time (or…multiple at a time? LOL).
Scissors can be poked. If Bison is using Scissors unintelligently, be brave and poke or grab him out of them. Bison isn’t off the ground until after the active frames of the first hit, so feel free to take risks and blow that up if you want. Psycho Crusher is also weird when it’s starting up, but I remember less about what the nuances for that are. You can U1 EX Psycho, though, during its startup, which is so heartbreaking from a Bison perspective.
Focus plenty, but watch out for cancels into Psycho Crusher and Scissors. Focus Devil’s Reverse (watch out for EX), focus Head Stomp (EX does massive damage, don’t focus this at low life), focus Skill Diver (again, watch out for EX). You can also backdash or walk out of Head Stomp’s initial jump, but watch out for empty Devil’s Reverse because it behaves the same way, but has less lag on landing.
Again, get the lead and sit on it. You don’t want to play catch up with Bison, especially now that he has cancelable s.:mp:, which allows him to move, charge, poke and cancel all at the same time.
P.S. - A note about focusing against Bison; focusing is smart to do when he’s off the ground. On the ground, you can only really try to snipe a focus on s.:hk:. If you start trying to focus too many grounded normals, you will eat cancels into focus breaks or, if the player feels like taking smart risks, you will eat raw Psycho Crushers since they break focus and catch either dash out of focus. Be careful when focusing grounded Bison.
Those are definitely some of her worst MU’s in the game aside from Yun I feel.
Thanks for the MU advice Yannick. I really need to find a Bison player to grind it out with. Same with Vega. I dont feel like the MU is bad, but I can’t win it at all because I never face any Vega’s so for the few I do run into I’m not accustomed to what I can or can’t do against him.
What would you guys consider these MU’s at this point in time? I havent fought enough(or at all) to get an idea of the MU.
Elf
Cammy
Hakan
Makoto
Abel
Guy
Fei
Honda
Oni
From that list i only played Abel, and Oni consistently
I think Abel wins the MU versus Elena. Roll just gets him out of pressure and he gets big damage so fast that Elena can’t do much and he’s built like a tank. I main Abel so whenever i play against an Elena if they don’t keep me guessing its kind of a blow up because i can just mix her up for days. I think Elena best bet is her back throw range, needs to do neutral jumps a lot more often. and poke from a safe range and go for a lot of high and low mix up. Also try not to use Delayed wakeup as much in this MU cause it kinda just gives Abel more set ups. Also neutral jump or backdash after a blocked Step kick is the way to go cause that move is 0 on block and a lot of abels will go for regular throw, light TT, or just do St.HP to catch you jumping. You can actually slide under his wheel kick then neutral jump for a punish or a mix up.
Oni
It’s not a bad MU per say but this is where her low stun starts to become a problem i grinded this MU out with 2 different Oni’s. One was more reaction and punish base and that wasn’t so bad the set was in my favor and Elena has a decent amount of tools to deal with Oni. The other set was a complete blow up for me that guy just racked up stun so fast and did not fall for any of my mind games at all. Its like 1 FADC combo then a regular combo and you’re stunned then dead. It really hurts if Oni didn’t get the damage reduction then it would have been so much worse. This MU imo heavily depends on whether or not you can get the mind games to work in your high and low mix up if not then prepare to see random DP or just be stunned to death because they will disregard your tools.
Much thanks for the Bison matchup tips guys, I’ll have to find a Bison player to grind it out with and try to apply them.
played an offline session with my local scenes Rufus. He thinks the MU is 5 -5 and honestly, after playing him I don’t think he’s too far off the mark. Unlike Yun/Yang it’s a whole lots easier to stop Rufus from getting in, however once he does, Elena’s screwed. That’s where the MU pretty much starts and ends. Elena’s normals beat Rufus’ in every way, but up close Rufus destroys Elena. the normally worthless s.HP is amazing in this MU, Rufus fatass body and floaty jump fits perfectly with its slow startup. If he tries to DK s.HP will beat it clean, if he doesn’t, it’ll beat it anyway provided you did it early enough. The rufus player has to decide how much they want to delay their DK’s to beat s.HP and Elena has to choose between s.HP to beat out most of his jumpins or s.mp if he begins getting a little more tricky. c.mp beats all of rufus’ normals and j.hp is godlike in the MU as well. Once he gets in then its the general MU advice for anyone that faces a Rufus in general. Dont press buttons. OS c.HP is sorta useful here but can be beat by a higher placed second DK. I’m thinking a 5 -5 or 5.5 - 4.5 in Rufus’ favour.
I think Blanka is most definitely one of Elena’s best MU’s by far. Being able to punish a blanka ball on block from any distance works wonders and limits his options severely. Definitely a 7 -3
I played against Viper a bit. First time ever playing a viper vs Elena actually. I thought it was only her thunder knuckle that whiffed, but man is it more than that. Vipers game is pretty much butchered due to Elena’s hurtbox so her mixup potential is very limited and she can only rely on ground pounts and flame kicks exclusively pretty much. 6 - 4 for Elena until Capcom releases the patch to fix the hurtbox issues. After that I can see it completely going the opposite way and being 4 - 6 against Elena. Theoretically, with all the tools at Vipers disposal this shouldnt be a winning MU for her.
I also played an hour session with my local scenes Honda. I honestly thought it might be in Elena’s favor beforehand based on the online matches Ive had against worse Hondas, but now I’m thinking it’s in Hondas favour. He can out turtle her and theres little reason for a Honda player to really do anything, just let Elena get close and use a light headbutt so it becomes unpunishable by Elena’s slide. His air normals destroy all her AA options so shes pretty free to a Honda jumpin should the Honda player wanna rushdown. With U1 stocked healing is also pretty worthless. U1 for Elena in this MU isnt that good either as its unlikely you’ll get honda in the corner. You’d have to rely on getting FADC into Ultra or hoping his jumping fierce doesnt completely eat your hk SW alive so you can trade into U1. So either focus on only getting U2 cancels or use UW.(If Honda doesnt have U1 stocked yet, off backthrow the most he can do is a heavy headbutt, you’ll heal much more than the dmg he dishes out and Honda doesnt really have a scary wakeup game, so it might be worth YOLO’ing it) I’m inching towards a 4.5 - 5.5 MU maybe even 4 - 6.
Playing a Honda main that also plays Decapre really made me see how bad the decapre Mu was for Elena. Not that I didn’t think it wasn’t before, but this really sealed the deal. Hands. That’s all I gotta say. Online decapres dont seem to have the execution for it, but this dude knew how to abuse it, and it only makes sense because Elena is free as fuck to Decapres hands. She can deliver non stop pressure to Elena and theres jack shit Elena can do about it unless she wants to risk a baited DP. From hands a Decapre can then go into her teleport mixups, which by itself is already troublesome for Elena’s AA’s, but combined with Hands it makes blocking her and keeping Decapre out downright dreadful. Not to mention that because of her design based around teleports she doesnt even have to really play footsies with you that much. Just get c.lk xx hands and do mixup city from there. I thought this was a 4 - 6 MU before I played this dude, and this definitely solidified my thoughts on it.
The best player at my scene is a Cammy/Rose/Juri player. I was most interested in Cammy as my thoughts on Rose/Juri are already pretty solidified as being heavily in their favour. People say that Decpare is the shittier version of Cammy, but not in this MU. handling Cammy is much more straightforward and easier than Decapre by far. You don’t have to deal with on the fly choice of AA normals due to teleport mixups, or hands pressure. Just good ol frame traps after a knockdown and blocking left or right. c.HP is pretty much your best friend here with s.mp/s.lp being good for those closer jumpins or when you reacted a little too late. Like the Rufus MU keeping Cammy out is the name of the game here, and Elena’s tools make it hard for Cammy to get in. Of course once she does you’re in trouble, but with good enough reactions you should be able to pull it out. Also like Rufus c.MP beats all of Cammy’s normals, and c.lp is an annoying poke for her to deal with once youve made her think twice about jumping in on you. All in all, I’d give this MU a 5 - 5