Definitely. Thanks for the info. It never comes into my mind to train my opponent at all. haha.
Wait, what? No, just… No! You should instead use safe kunais (they ARE blockstring if correctly timed) and let your opponent mash and lose, then once you got him to respect your vortex, you can start mixing him up with unsafe kunais. Don’t start with unsafe stuff or you are putting you at risk at the beginning of the match!
Especially in tournament conditions, when you are playing in FT2, you REALLY don’t want your opponent to mash and break your pressure game. Actually, you’d rather like to see him mash and punish him hard =)
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That is true, they CAN be blockstrings. However the timing is acutally quite hard to do and will always land on the same side resulting on an easy to block kunai. If you do NOT get the blockstring then you will have to start to backdash after the blocked kunai or even block. I keep finding people challenging my kunai blockstrings more than people challenging my safe kuanis. If you want to make it a mix up you might want to hit the other side as well, which will make the kunai not a blocksting. Which is fine, you just can’t pressure safely afterwords.
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did you read my post at all?
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The very few people who dare challenge my unsafe kunais are inexperienced ibuki players. The better players that I’ve faced know not to challenge it thanks to past (regretful) ibuki experiences. They rather run away via EX chiken wing, ect.
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Its not a question about IF, its a question about WHEN. Again, I see a lot of players mashing DP after a blocked kunai, and not so much on my jump-in kunais. They will have to guess when to mash, before or after. But usually one is the answer if I do touch something after the kunai has landed. In tournament conditions people will dp that blocked kuani. (especially Akumas for some fucking reason)
Always wear protection and play safe. The problem again is which kind of safe do you want? A safejump or a blockstring? You CAN do both, but its hard to time and not really a mix up.
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Solution : train more. The kunais I use are pretty much always safe, ambiguous, and blockstrings, except a few of them which are designed to look like a normal jumpin. The only character difficult to safely kunai + blockstring so far is Zangief, because stuffing Lariat + staying safe is indeed pretty difficult. Possibly Sagat, which is hard to crossup safely. For the other characters… No problem so far. I’d advise you to spend time in the training room and fine tune your kunai setups =) .
Quick and easy setup which works against a lot of the cast: Neckbreaker - whiff st.LP - super jump kunai. Do it against Ryu, and see. You’re safe, the kunai will most likely hit crossup unless you delay your jump more (blockstring harder), you land on the other side. -
Of course ^^
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Good solution: play more high level players if you can. I know it seems obvious, but really, just like F-Word said in another thread, at high level, Ibuki’s vortex is not guaranteed - at all. When I play Sanford for example, he won’t hesitate to mash on wakeup because he doesn’t care, he has enough life, and he wants to show me he’s not afraid. Moreover, when you play at a high level, you will play people who know how to recognize Ibuki’s setups.
That’s actually one of Ibuki’s greatest weaknesses: continuously playing people wo don’t know how to deal with our vortex make us confident in the fact that we can win anything with jump kunai. Whenever we go and play somebody truly gdlk, we quickly realize that the game is actually not what we thought it was. A lot of high level players know when to mash and when to wait. That’s why, for example, I continuously argue with Mingo on the Zangief subject. After playing guys like Aquasilk, Itabashi, Snake Eyes or Vangief, I realized how much work Ibuki needs to put to beat him while before I was just thinking it was an okay matchup. Meh. -
Depends. That’s where your brain comes in handy: see, react, adapt =)
And it is definitely possible to make a blockstring + ambiguous, work on it!
Also, just remember one thing: if you do a non-blockstring knai and your opponent mashes, he is putting himself at a HUGE risk. If you’re smart enough, you can launch your kunai, then step back to possibly let his DP whiff and punish (and if you can loop, it’s even bigger). Remember you have 99 seconds to finish a round, so you can take time to slow down your pressure and bait stuff
This is gonna sound really stupid but bare with me.
Sometimes, Ill jump in with Kunai, moreso against characters who dont have a vortex game. Once I do, Ill see how they react.
No DP- Do again
DP -Fun part.
Fun Part is when you attempt a very similar jump, or jump in when he is looking to DP, and EX Kunai instead, dropping you straight to the floor and sometimes gives you an opportunity to punish. Obviously, this is very scenario-heavy, but I thought I would at least share this, just in case someone actually thought this wasnt an awful idea.
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I don’t have any trouble setting up safe jumps. I use that safe setup already. I was actually making a video about it, but then my stick died and I can’t record on pc at the moment. The way I time it is reversalish s.LP into instant super jump, kunai on top of the arc and it will be safe, and cross up. If I delay my super jump after the s.LP about 1/3 of a second, it DOESN’T cross up and still safe. However, the non-cross up one is no longer a blockstring (I think, I don’t remember which one it was). Both timings land on the opposite side. Again, one is NOT a blockstring which means they can still DP you after a blocked kunai. With that same timing I was actually able to come up with a safe jump (safe against DPs including Cammy’s) that crosses up on Zangief, stuffs both lariats, and still a block string. I had to try many times to recreate that kunai. So yes, maybe you are right. Maybe I do need more practice and I’m just a scrub for not doing really hard kunai jump ins. But I really don’t want something inconsistent on my play. At least not until I perfect it, not to mention that I don’t always go for kunais. If anything, I use my kunais more for pressure than mix-ups, this is the reason for my unsafe kunais, for block strings, in offline play they always block my kunais and I honestly don’t really care because they are still blocking my crouch techs and will get tick thrown or frame trapped. Maybe I have the wrong mentality for not trying to make the kunais hit, but in that case I’d prefer to use unblockables, which is a completely different topic.
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You suggested something I already posted.
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Again, just like the first thing I said. “Unsafe kunais (after an untechable knockdown) should always be used. Up until your opponent DPs you from the air.” If you know he is willing to do that, then don’t do it ffs. lol. Just like you said, kunais will always be blocked at a higher level which does happen do me a lot, but that’s not really where I personally get all my pressure and damage. I get them more from reactions, reads, footsies and jumpins. I haven’t really worked on my vortex in a while. I’ll start to work on it after I feel comfortable with my non-vortex game. Which will be in a long while.
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Again, I’ve already mention about blocking or backdashing after a blocked kunai specifically for adapting. But if your kunais are blockstrings, you don’t have to gamble or make any reads after a blocked kunai to win. Instead you can make them block and play SF4, frame traps, tick throws and baits.
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Kunais are always ambiguous. You can still make them safe and block strings, but you lose the vortex, on left-right mixups. Un-safe kunais will make them ambiguous and blockstrings. You CAN get all 3 at the same time but the timings are VERY strict and have MANY variables that can mess you up. You’re better off working on unblockables which are much easier to set up. You say all your kunais are safe, and that they all get blocked. Have you tried working on kunais landing on alternative sides? Whenever I try that in a match people usually choke on me and consistently start getting hit by kunais. All my safe kunais cross-up and are very easy to block.
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Again, I already mentioned that you can block or backdash (to avoid grapplers and FADCs) on blocked kunais, but again, you have to make the read, and react to the kunai. You wont have to if its a blocktring. Not to mention that if you simply block they might be mashing crouch tech or be throwing out jabs or react to you not doing anything and now THEY are pressuring YOU. And that’s always big no-no.
It’s not a terrible idea, you are definitely thinking ahead, but this is more of a player specific thing than a matchup specific thing. It will only work if you know your opponent is also reacting with anti-airs. And to know that you definitely have to test your opponent just like you mentioned. Its not stupid, but it is a risk of losing a bar of EX, in which that case it will be matchup specific, are you going to need it for a EX dp? Perhaps a better set up to look for is the #10 target combo, c.HK, s.HK. Jump forward, see what they do. If they DP (which most people do) you can definitely bait it out with an EX kunai.
Again, its always an option, and some definite mind games, but there are much better ways to get in on an opponent, without losing 1 or 2 ex bars AND still play mind games.
Quick snip:
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Yup, good kunais take a lot of practice do be done. You still can make a blockstring out of a non-crossup one, but the timing is, as you already noticed, tight. I personnally like to use a lot of kunais in my game (usually until I see that the opponent is backdashing lol), so I am in the mentality “just train continuously to throw kunais until you eventually get the timing perfectly”. That’s all a matter of being used to the timing
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My point exactly. If you don’t know if he’s willing to do it, you should first check if he’s gonna do it or not by using safe stuff (which will also make him think twice before mashing again) and then switch to the unsafe if you want to, I’d say that using the opposite reasoning is pretty risky
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To be honest, at high level, Superjump kunais are pretty much not ambiguous at all. I think that I’ve never landed a single super jump kunai to Sanford (while I landed a lot of normal jump kunais). I remember him telling me that he thinks it’s easy to block a super jump one, which I kinda agree
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Of course, but don’t ever forget one thing: vortex is not gonna make you win. Your brain is. If you focus on keeping the pressure with simple and safe setups, you’ll most likely lose against the very good playere =)
i think for someone who is a novice like me, its a good intro to mind games. I really need to step up my fund-ies and my decision making, as im slowing getting the hang of doing consistent loops on some of the easier characters and some of the other better combos, like using s.mp more than tc4 for neckbreaker finisher. i have found i can do loops with around 90% efficiency on deejay, which is good consider i fucking hate that match up -_-
if you guys dont mind phone cam vids, i could post some games for evaluation? i would greatly appreciate it.
short term goals
-best ibuki in socal
-win a wednesday night fights
long term goals
-attend SCR 2014
-hopefully attend other majors
-put ibuki on the fear list 
-put socal back on the map as a community.
my ultimate goal is to get good enough and have enough of a rep to hold training sessions in socal to help the community. if we had someone like jwong teaching socal the fund-ies and how to think, socal would be the most dominate place. this is what is currently happening everywhere else, such as norcal with fgtv, lost in space, why me dojo, and etc, which are all places where people can go and learn from the best. i feel socal needs a more welcoming place to learn, and i would love to create that.
We have similar goals =]. Right now I want to be the best Ibuki in Norcal (the best one is in Japan right now with dat master rank in bp arcade). I think there’s one Ibuki player in WNFs, maybe you can learn from him. Man I remember last lost in space I was 1 match away from being streamed. I had to lose to a counterpick Rog. Can’t you also learn from the best in WNFs or Super Arcade in general? Sounds like something’s holding you down? But then idk much about SoCal scene.
its my plateau… im not getting any better and i dont know why. i took a week break to play bioshock infinite (fucking amazing btw) but ill see.
personally it seems like the norcal scene is amazing. I really havent seen much ibukis up there. but then again there arent many ibukis everywhere.
three things i need to learn to be a better ibuki
-better fundies
-learn how to OS ( i get the concept, not the execution)
-SJCing.
any tips here?
For practicing safe jump option selects, record a standard Neckbreaker b+MP j.HP safe jump, then just after you press HP, input a sweep as if you were buffering cr.MP Neckbreaker. If you do it right, the j.HP will hit and the sweep won’t actually come out. Then put the dummy on playback, get knocked down, and backdash. If the dummy sweeps you, you did the timing properly.
For meaty st.MP option selects, just do the meaty and input a Neckbreaker as if you were cancelling from st.MK. Since st.MP can’t be special cancelled, the Neckbreaker won’t come out if the meaty hits or gets blocked. Practice doing st.MP OS Neckbreaker st.MP st.MK Neckbreaker (hit) or LK Tsumuji (block) so that you get the muscle memory for doing the OS, but still comboing or keeping yourself (somewhat) safe. Obviously that combo doesn’t work on everyone, but it’s almost universal anyway.
When you’re in a plateau, you need to keep asking questions and study your losses. For example, if your opponent keeps jumping in on you, then work on anti airing. If you find yourself jumping too much and getting hit, stay more grounded. If you get hit easily by crossups, then work on defense. I can’t say more since idk how you play. For a newbie, sjc isn’t necessary yet.
I found a sep up that itll work for me uploading videos. any critique at all would be great. ill try to upload some more of them to get a better idea of how i play. this one is a bit old, but is proof to me that I can be at least an A level player.
Please upload another video where you don’t actually win.
But at least based on what I skimmed (and the Dudley video), I think your best bet to overcome your plateau is to try playing with other characters, like Ryu. I don’t want to list out specific habits I immediately saw in the video, because it would only force you to hide those habits instead of get rid of them completely. Best to play another character and those habits will just get automatically ironed out, I think.
Also who cares about points lol. If you plan on training online a lot, I’d recommend turning off points display.
the way i think of it, if i upload games i win or play my best, then what i didnt show/do or the flaws during those games are stuff i really need to work on.
How much should i play this other character? should i play them for weeks or trade off between that and ibuki?
How do you know you played your best? If you won, then that means your opponent didn’t do a very good job of exposing your flaws, imo.
I dunno, probably a good amount. The goal is to change your mindset and get better at the game, instead of just get better with Ibuki.
sounds good. ill find something to upload today, there is a fantastic bipson player on PC that i hope i still have records of. but im playing more ryu. basically working on footises and AAing and thats it. also buffers and option selects, but basic ones for now. ill be stepping it up as i go along.
You should listen mingo and try to play a character like Ryu, Sagat, Sakura or something like that, because you lack of a lot of fundamentals and just spam 3 or 4 things braindead with Ibuki instead of play the game.
Imho, you should focus on:
- Learn frametraps. Work on your pressure.
- Learn safe jumps with OS. (Ryu safe jump OS sweep or srk it´s a good start).
- Stop using very unsafe things as random neckbreakers. That would never work offline.
- Learn the best punish for each situation (corner, standing opponents, crouching opponets etc). (I.E. If seth whiffs a dp you can´t punish it with a Raida, you should use the most damaging combo which your execution level allows.)
- Watch sako videos, but just forget about fancy combos, try to understand his playstyle, footsies, whiffpunish and frametraps…just don´t focus only if he does a tsumuji loop, forget about that for a while.
Hey guys. I’m relatively new to the street fighter series (been playing on and off for a about a year) and I now want to start being competitive. I would very appreciate if you critique my gameplay. I’m still training and need others perspective in the way I play.
Match #1: excessive use neckbreaker (random neckbreakers)
sweeping too much
allowing viper to get in (no AA used)
not punishing effectively
Match #2: not blocking effectively
random neckbreakers
missed combos (not punishing correctly)
abusing sazan
Match # 3: allowing Ibuki to get in (no AA)
random neckbreakers
not converting BnB combos
random ultra
not blocking effectively
Sorry for the quality of the videos. Looking in to getting a capture device later on.