Dealing with Zappa
I don’t actually play Faust or Axl, but in playing against Zappa and watching other people shut him down, there are a couple of key points to your gameplan that push Zappa down the teirs pretty fast.
That being said, the first point, Ironically, is to remember that Zappa is still pretty damn good. He can do all sorts of crazy shit if you aren’t careful, and if Rao shows up (the giant blue ghost of doom) you’re in for some serious trouble. His ghosts give him a very wide range of options that make him dangerous, but keep in mind that it IS his ghosts that make him scary.
Which leads me to my second point. Without his ghosts, Zappas options are incredibly limited. Without them, his gameplan will revolve around collecting souls, and summoning ghosts, which is a very narrow plan, which is easily dealt with if you stay smart.
Without the ghosts, Zappa’s scariest move is hitting you with the summon ghost move, RCing it, and doing it again. (My roommate does this to me once in a while, and when I got careless, he got Rao out on me 3 times in one match. How I survived that, I’ll never know) The easiest setup for this that I can think of is to dash under everything and throw it out there. The easiest way to beat it, is to block.
On to point three, which is startlingly similar to point one. Just because he’s low-teir, doesn’t mean he can’t hurt you. In CvS2 get my ass handed to me by Kyosuke more than I do by Ken. I KNOW that Ken can mess me up, and so I play a smart game. Kyosuke, on the other hand, is a character with little to no redeeming value and so, like an idiot, I do stupid stuff and get owned for it. The point is, Zappa’s easily shut down, simple things like blocking and throwing fireballs ruin his game. The trick is to actually block and throw fireballs instead of getting cocky and letting him beat the crap out of you.
Four. His ghosts are what make him good. I said it once, and I’ll say it many times over. They give him one of the widest ranges of options in the game, overall. The problem is, he can only use one of them at a time, so when he gets a ghost, his gameplan will change accordingly. Sword-Zappa generally plays a pretty good rushdown backed up by a nigh-unstoppable anti-air. Dog-Zappa plays runaway (I think) with some very strange (and unexpected) pokes. Multi-ghost-Zappa plays one of the weirdest games ever, involving bananas, golf balls, and flower pots. This is the hardest zappa to get through for me, because it has good anti-air, good fireballs, good priority normals (I use the word loosely) and if you get hit once, you’re gonna be dodging weird junk for a while. Multi-ghost-Zappa threatens by far the largest area of the screen and is very hard to deal with, except for one thing. To use the multi-ghosts properly, you’ve gotta throw one of them and hit with it. once they’ve been thrown, they need to be retrieved, so each time Zappa throws a ghost, he is reducing the number of threats he has. Keep him throwing them at you, then thow fireballs or block them to keep them from doing anything. once this is done, Zappa’s all out of options till he gets them back. Now you go hit zappa. With the dog, you can block it, or hit it with something when it tries to hit you, or just get the heck out of its way, chase Zappa down, and hit him. For the sword, you really are best off blocking it until you get the opening, or throwing a fireball at him, I mean, what’s he gonna do, Stab it?
The problem with using the ghosts is that while they widen his options greatly, they are not as complete, strategy-wise, as say, sol’s rushdown, Bridget’s runaway/poking, or Faust’s ability to cover the screen with damaging stuff. and that’s the trick. learn the weaknesses of each ghost and exploit them.
Oh, except for Rao. Rao-Zappa’s gameplan is to rip you a new one, and it works. Well. there is very little you can do against a capable Rao user. The best way to beat Rao-Zappa, is to not let him hit you with his 236p because then he won’t get Rao, and all you need to do for that, is block.
PS. hitting Zappa should be pretty easy to do with Axl. just use 2h when he dashes in, or the ranged unblockable, when he jumps, DP his ass. As far as faust goes, try getting some distance between the two of you, and throwing some crap of your own out there. if you get anything besides candy or a hammer, you’ve got some serious options open to you. Oh, and if ANYONE mentions me getting sacked by Kyosuke, I’m deleting it and denying that I ever said anything about it.
