It seems like the fireballs are pretty useless in the Rog matchup and zoning is extremely hard. Rog has such fast horizontal movement that is safe on block that it’s dangerous to really try and set up any slow zoning/trap game. I was having the most luck using a ton of st.lp when hes downback looking to do a random dash straight/low in and hitting him out of it. Otherwise any screen space you manage to get he instantly zooms on top of you much like Karin does.
Josh_P
219
Balrog loses to fang normal pressure. You don’t need upballs, but carpets work very well in stopping rushes.
Honestly, fang destroys balrog in almost every way. PR_Balrog rated fang as balrog’s 4th worst matchup, and I have to agree. As a long time balrog player myself (in many ways I play fang like a balrog), Fang is basically a more technical balrog (just forget the fireball side of the character for a moment), and fangs normals are just superior. You can just suffocate balrog in a whirlwind of normals, and balrog cant do anything except v-reversal (which can be thrown/baited) or super (which can be avoided).
Balrogs flashkick can be bothersome, but your low mk just beats it for free. I have played many balrogs on CFN, just search mookmonster, look at my casual matches for most stuff.
Cuz im bored, here is a list of comparisons between balrog/fang
Balrog/Fang
Rush Punch/Sotoja (Balrogs is better, but same principle)
Stand HK/Stand HK: both function exactly the same, balrogs a little faster (i think): Even.
Sweep (Fangs slighly better due to range and v-trigger followups.
Standing mp/standing mk (Basically the same move, balrogs slightly better though as a reliable anti-air).
Low mp (same move for both characters, even same frame startup).
Low FP (again, for both characters, the utility of the move is the same, startup also almost the same, balrogs has better combo utility but slightly less good as anti-air).
From this perspective, Balrog is the high dmg normal character, and fang is the lower dmg, but more tricks/setups normal move character. Both are charge based, footsie characters who use normals to pressure opponent and lead to advantage.
Balrog is +2 on his st.HK though. It also Crush Counters.
Josh_P
221
They are the same in the sense that for both chars, stand hk leads to a full combo even if u dont have charge…hence both buttons have same purpose.
You’re generalizing here, Fang’s and Balrog’s normals are not similar- they have much different uses. You can’t say two moves are similar just because they have similar frame data, they have wildly different hit/hurt boxes.
Josh_P
223
Hey you don’t have to agree. If you don’t see it, you don’t see it, but the characters are remarkably similar in numerous ways, and knowing this may help you in the matchup. Your loss, not mine.
PS: Focus on my usage of the word utility…if you don’t understand, then oh well.
ribu
224
What do people think of this as his MU list:
Worst: Ken, Cammy, Necalli
Bad(4-6): Nash, Bison, Ryu
Even/4.5-5.5-Everyone else
Good: Birdie(without VT), Gief, Balrog
Not really sure about Laura,Ibuki, and Chun.
I feel Nash is 5 - 5. I do feel this changes once he gets vtrigger and full CA as this shuts FANGs keep away and rushdown significantly.
If you can bait both his ca and his Vtrigger, he’s a pussy cat. Best way to beat a Nash is to put hard pressure on him and don’t let him out the corner without him spending vtrigger to escape.
Laura is trouble in good hands. You have to play suuuuuuuuper lame with her but it works. Ibuki is too new to me. Chun is just plain bs.
Alright, I played a set with Sako at evo and now firmly believe the Chun matchup is the worst. Chun can absolutely smother Fang in the corner, her midrange game is insane, and she can completely dictates the pace. I realize I haven’t been playing clean though, I was punished for trying to dash in on knockdowns without setups and trying to pressure too hard. When people start optimizing punishes it will be rough.
I find the Chun matchup rather hard but I do think Cammy is the worst matchup. Her ability to make most of the trap and fireball game useless along with her very strong mid range buttons makes the range at which you want to play very hard to determine and stay in.
Ya, Cammy feels like the absolute worse to me. Meterless reversals on her kill me every time.
I played a local tourny (41 people) and got beat by two ken players. Both matches were extremely close but I get very hesitant against Ken and really wonder how to approach the matchup. I took far to many DP into v trigger into DP’s when trying to pressure him while hes on low life. It really made me play too scared and struggle to close the match out. Anyone have any tips and general strategy I should be using against Ken?
DP into V-Trigger on block is -5. You can mash out a throw and be confident that, unless he techs, he can’t do anything. Or do s.LP, s.MK, MP Sotoja to punish it properly like a good player would! I keep mashing throw because I’m a scrub :(.
Ken’s EX dive kicks are a real bother to a lot of the cast, but FANG deals with them better than most. cr.HP lowers our hitbox and hits far enough behind us to deal with them at most ranges. Plus Nishikyu can pop him out of there if he tries it. He can’t really threaten behind the Ryobenda without meter, so usually if you’re trying to keep that up he’ll approach from the air.
Ken doesn’t have a 3 frame normal, so s.HK can abuse him pretty well, and our +2 on block moves become that much nicer as well. He does have a DP, and 3 frame specials, so there’s still risk. However if he uses L Tatsu (3 frames) to trade, we can punish on block.
Ken is great at using the shimmy, so prepare to be stubborn and not tech sometimes. You’ll eat more damage and stun if you guess wrong on the throw and he punishes with a shimmy combo. It’ll take a lot of throws to kill FANG, but only 2-3 combos before we’re stunned and killed.
I feel I repeat a lot of similar stuff when giving advice vs characters, haha. Hopefully some of it is helpful though!
Thanks for the advice, I religiously watch your youtube to help refine my own play.
I was getting shimmied and v skill canceled into throw over and over. I think I just need to hammer out the range of that mp and his target combo better. How negative is Ken when he cancels something like cr.MP into v skill? I was having a hard time reacting with jab or punishing it and just found teching to be the best answer eventually.
Ken is in counter hit state during his runs and a lot of Kens like to hit buttons after, which gives more time to counter hit him. If he’s run happy try to react with st.hp or cr.mk, both allow you to confirm the counter hit. I think cr.mp>v skill is -7 on block but I’m not sure.
ribu
233
Ran a few sets against juri last night. Thing that stuck out the most so far was her v-skill beats his zoning pretty well. That and having 3 frame moves made sHK w.e…
Yeah, I was looking into the properties of her V-Skill. Seems like a pretty solid answer to deal with FANG’s zoning, which is a pretty crucial aspect of his when combatting 3-Frame characters.
I read the V-Skill is at least -5 on block, so hopefully we can throw it to punish if nothing else? I worried that we wouldn’t be able to get charge in time for other punishes, but I haven’t went into the lab yet to figure things out. Just reading/studying data right now.
ribu
235
I read its -10(unless it’s space dependent)… From what I noticed it’s pretty awkward to punish with anything meaningful though, sLPxsMK didnt hit right to combo afterwards. Punishing might change once I’m more used to the MU…
If it’s -10, the blockstun and generous time to cancel should probably mean we can do s.HP > HP Sotoja to punish it consistently.
I can’t tell if Juri’s v-skill is going to be a big issue or not. If they do it timed correctly it blows up any real zoning you put down however I’m not completely sure it goes through traps always. I feel like if your close enough to an active trap she might get hit because she has a hitbox briefly in front of you. Also you can pretty much always punish (if you block it) with s.HP cancel into HP Sotoja, so you can make it hurt pretty bad.
I think this matchup seems somewhat rough once people figure out how to play her a bit better. One thing I’ve noticed is every Juri pretty much opens the round by starting to charge up her different kicks. Be aware they pretty desperately want to charge those so look for patterns in when they are looking to charge that and the V-Skill. I caught a lot of backdashes out of charging V-Skill by jumping in pretty early in the round when they were more concentrated on building charges. Pressuring her seems to work better than trying to play to long range of a game but that could just be a day 2 Juri thing.
