I didn’t mean to imply you’d do nothing but j.lk, or that it will work 100%. It’s just a vital asset to the fight, and putting Honda where you want him. I can usually come out on top with most decent honda’s, but haven’t had too much luck against an expert Honda. J.lk certainly opens up a door. Blanka needs to get in close, but at the same time, you don’t want to be command’thrown, so it might be good to hop around more than usual with a cross-up, before going in for a bite.
even though honda’s c.mp will both knock you out of crossup hops AND cause you to be orochi? no thanks.
Just crossup lk with blanka. he literally can’t do shit… crossup lk, c.mk, vertical ball… dizzy, start over.
Oh you thought I meant his command-hop. I probably shouldn’t say ‘hop’ when I’m talking about his jump.
oh ok.
question: how do you beat Balrog’s headbash loop? he would simply throw > walking crossover > throw > walking crossover > throw > …
i never played vanilla ST, so it could be common knowledge. but i lost probably 5 games by allowing this loop to succeed. my timing could have been off, but i was trying everything i could think of to no avail. is a counter throw my only option??
up ball/counter throw/back hop.
Nothing is sweeter than back hopping and counter throwing spd’s rekkas etc.
if a player is not mixing up his throw loops at all, he is vulnerable to reversals and counter throws (i learned this by abusing blanka bite myself)
If all boxer does is walk under tick into throw, which is good no doubt about that, you have to know your reversal timing to stuff that throw or tick if his timing is bad. Defense in ST is hard, but like in football, offense wins games, but defense wins championships. Gotta learn defense to be successful in the long run.
Im still working in it, i know that much
Blanka bite has more priority than headbutt, so you can learn the timing and counter it.
If they play tricks, this is a stupid method, but it will save you a few matches until you get it down (it worked when I played graham wolfe… so it does work… just not guaranteed of course) is just mash a direction and HP as soon as they start to walk under you. if they hit you meaty mk though, you will be dizzied (that is, if they’re good). it’s something to have under your bag of tricks, but don’t depend on this EVER. If you get out of one or two successfully, they will most likely change their gameplan.
don’t forget that jump back fierce will counter hit headbutts/psycho crushers if you time it right.
this is really important cause it does like 5x more damage than j.short.
I also don’t recommend trying to grab honda too much, he can negative edge reversal oochio everytime.
Honda has 3 things that he can do that basically blanka can do nothing about
- jab headbutt a jump in
- hhs pressure
- butt slam meaty mixups.
as a blanka player you need to know how to not get into these traps.
this is hard. It means
- not jumping in without crossing up
- not getting knocked down/reset
Honda also beats a lot of your tricks. whiff ball/dash tricks are out of the question since honda can just headbutt you out of the dash/ball.
anyways, my strat vs. honda is open with wait, then jump back fierce. this will beat a headbutt done first thing (you’ll block) and if he honda waits then you fierce his headbutt.
After that it’s turtling. a press a lot of s.short s.jab s.strong mixed up with j.short and jump back fierce and electricity as these moves will all counter hit a headbutt that he does. If honda goes for the headbutt you counter hit and you can now crossupshort him into crossup short or crossup short s.strong/c.forward back into crossup short repeat until he dies.
honda can’t get out unless he jump back jabs. if he times it wrong, a jump short will beat it, but if you see it/predict it, your own j.jab beats it out.
honda’s other option is to hhs out of there (it will make a crossup short whiff) from here you have to land and punish or if he recovers you go back to jump away fierce and wait to get in again.
if honda is randomly butt dropping, an electricity will trade more often than not (occasionally it’ll beat it, sometimes it’ll lose). safer is to just jump jab it, reset him, then go into crossup short shenanigans.
you can’t just electricity randomly, cause HHS and all of honda’s normals will beat it clean (honda’s towards + roundhouse sweep, low strong etc). It does trade/win in your favour if he does headbutt though. (cause you get the awesome knockdown into… crossup short).
Be super wary though, cause electricity has mad start up and will not beat meaty buttslam, crossup buttslam, meaty headbutt or HHS, or if honda waits, he can punish with his his sweep.
one interesting tactic I’ve seen is close range electricity, you have to space it right, where if honda tries to press a button he’ll trade, but he can’t be blocking it (if he blocks it he can punish it). This tactic is really solid, cause honda can only jump back from this position, he can’t walk back cause the electricity puts him in block animation. He can’t attack cause electricity beats it clean, and he can’t walk foward without getting hit.
but basically the match is pure turtling until one of you gets on top of the other. blanka loses to all of honda’s shenanigans, and honda loses to all of blanka’s shenanigans. honda has advantage mostly just because jab headbutt beats all your non crossup jump ins clean
I don’t want to give away my dirty gimmick,
but can anyone test this for me? I’m told that it hits crossup.
back to corner, bite -> roundhouse arc roll hits crossup.
it’s then punishable on hit by a free combo, but bite into a free ball shenanigan is like 40% damage.
dirty trick for the win?
this works in ST too.
that works. i use it frequently to get me the match. just don’t use it often
another one that works, j.lk, s.lp (like you’re going to tick) and cancel to mk ball. crossup again, and it avoids things like shoto sweeps to punish. it’s easy to punish, but it could work mid-pressure game
By the way, THANK YOU SOOOOO MUCH for that Honda post.
ok, im not sure if its lag, but what is your best option to punish ken whiff jab dp? i often just wait for him to get bored and do something else cause i really dont want to get hit and knocked down by a jab dp. i know slide is not good, and cr.hp seems to be a little too slow.
Here’s a match I had the other night vs Mad Possum’s Chun Li.
[media=youtube]XweuJuxHo30&feature=channel_page[/media]
It shows off some mixups and counters vs Chun. No disrespect to Mad Possum, I just wanted to demonstrate some Blanka tactics. He just happened to fall victim to them. 
EDIT: Sorry, link fixed.
~Decoy
“This video has been removed by the user.”
~YouTube
I’d be interested in seeing that vid, as I have all kinds of trouble against Chun-Li players & their j.lk
i cant wait to get back to playing STHD online again, i need to level up my blanka
Damn, that was nice!:woot:
Is it just me, vs. Scrubs, or do all of you Beasts breathe a sigh of relief when you see Akuma? This match up seems pretty safe in Blanka’s favor.
With Blanka, I’m yet to run into one that gives me way too much trouble. Some people know how to set up an SGS pretty well, and that will get you if you let them set it up, but I’ve learned how to avoid those. A ‘good’ akuma might get in one round, but I’m able to work around his tricks for the next two rounds.
With Honda, Akuma gives me a very hard time, but not Blanka.
If anyone feels the contrary, lemme know. Maybe I’m just not running into a good Akuma yet. There are some really good players I’ve fought, but they never pick him. I played this one Akuma when it first came out, and HE gave me a hard time, but that was then. You’re really only in trouble when Akuma knocks you down and knows his wake-up game.
I’m really bad at retrospective analysis when it comes to how I win my matches with Blanka. For me, it just works. Name any trick Blanka has, I’ve probably used it.
that’s because honda’s not that good vs. shotos
as for akuma… i’ve yet to play an akuma player that i think is good… i seriously see air fireballs all day, and it’s gay…
I hear rainbow roll has advantage on block these days now. what do people do after a blocked rainbow roll? how much does it have? is it awkward to count, cause it’s a like a jump and depends on impact?
I had a dream last night about crossup rainbow roll low forward xx vertical ball being a combo.
that would be nuts.
OK, i have a massive question
how do I determine if the rainbow roll will land or bounce off?