I have a Chun Li friend I play with pretty frequently, so I am used to a lot of Chun Li’s weaknesses. I hadn’t thought about just how much they affect the Juri/Chun Li match up till I saw Sako demolish some Chun Lis and found a few early set up videos that might tilt the battle in Juri’s favor. Just looking at a side by side comparison of Chun Li’s weaknesses might make this a little more apparent.
A lot of this is http://www.eventhubs.com/news/2016/aug/08/haitani-and-daigo-are-currently-neck-and-neck-race-number-one-spot-street-fighter-5-leaderboards/#c1017870 converted to Juri vs Chun stuff rather than the specific stuff, credit to Infamy.
Throws and mix ups are the real deal in this game. Pretty strong no matter what way you look at it. Chun Li has the second worst throw range in the game, while Juri is definitely high up there on the shimmy speed wagon. Most of Chun Li’s pressure can be walked away from, in part due to this, but Juri can basically out space Chun Li, her throw being much more capable of beating Chun Li’s and making her mix ups that much stronger because of it.
The other issue with Chun Li is her Crush Counters are pretty garbage ones for damage out put. Two of her main ones are either so stubby you can’t truly fish with pressure or… well… ‘standing heavy kick’. Yeah they can do pretty decent on whiff punishes and frame traps but they aren’t exactly the type that help you build V-Meter consistently, especially if you compare them to other crush counters in the game such as Lady Mika or Ken’s standing HP. In short you aren’t going to be building much V meter in neutral. Compare this to Juri’s standing Heavy kick alone and you can start to see just how much more often Juri is capable of building the V-Meter she needs.
I hope I don’t have to explain why Chun Li’s V-Reversal vs Juri’s is laughable. Juri and Ibuki have probably the best V-Reversals in the game right now.
And probably the harder to compare, jumps. Juri’s is this sleek elegant high but shallow thing and not floaty at all. speed does not lag behind either. Chun Li’s otoh is this 41 frame floaty as fuck jump (and her V-Skill jump is even worse.) This makes her, for Juri specifically I think, far easier to air to air escpecially given Juri has an air to air tool kit that rivals if not beats Chun Li’s hands down.
Anyway the advantages Juri have on Chun Li are pretty clear. My friend thinks this is a 6-4 matchup but you know how people who main a character are. That said they no longer think Chun Li isn’t top tier, just that they suck (I dunno, but that’s a different story.)
That being said a few other things make me think this might be a 6-4.
For example, Chun Li’s fireball game is even more useless than usual. If Chun Li ever tries to use fireball against her as a fireball, Juri is going to take advantage of it to charge up her shit and zone /Chun/. (This was the part I observed from the Sako stuff specifically.)
The other thing that I have observed is Chun Li’s normals don’t poke Juri that well. The ranges for Chun Li’s optimal poking (which is a key part of her game plan) just do not line up far enough to hit Juri’s own optimal range. And lets face it a jump in from Chun Li is pretty easy to react to with Juri’s tool set.
Finally, I have seen a set up where you can push Chun Li out of throw range, but you can still throw her or go for more pressure.
So what do you all think, do these so-called ‘weaknesses’ of Chun Li’s give Juri the advantage, and do you have any set ups/spacing advice to make it closer to 6-4 even if it isn’t really?