K groove chars against Sagat 1st round

I need some ideas about a replacement for K Blanka. I play K Blanka/Geese/Sagat R2. I really like using Blanka because he’s one of my better characters. The problem is that people like to play counter match ups and then use K Sagat on me first round when I use Blanka. Blanka doesn’t do so well so I need to think up some replacements. The best I could think of is Cammy but I tried her and she got stunned so fast.

stop running into shit is my suggestion, blanka vs sagat isn’t exactly his worst matchup

or just switch to sagat/geese/blanka-r2, just worry about keeping geese away from sagat, you don’t wanna use a character who can’t duck his fierce (that’s not sagat) against him

It’s not? I always hear about how non RC Blanka always gets owned by Sagat all the time…

Sagat > Non RC Blanka
RC Blanka > Sagat

Go with K Cammy

Small jump gives you more mobility when Sagat throws low tigers.
JD gives you a better defence against Sagat’s limbs, for a good reward.
Try to JD Sagat’s st. forward when he tries to keep you out, and you do RH xx super.
Overall, you get more offense with a rewarding defence.

Here’s some stupid advice. Marginal stuff that falls under the category of maybe nice to know, but probably not important enough to cause a real difference in the match. Some of its opinion, especially tactics, and I’m probably worse than the average scrub player, so take a nice big pinch of salt with whatever I say.

-st. MP is completely safe on JD as a meaty. You’re never worse than dead even, so if it’s even the slightest bit meaty, you’ll still have the advantage.
-if you can and it’s in range, hit back stuff with cr. RH instead of cr. HP. RH scores a knockdown, gets Blanka in for some electricity opportunities. Massive chip damage and guardcrush is always welcome, so try to score as many of those opportunities as you can.
-cr. HP isn’t that great an antiair against K-Sagat I guess. If he’s hitting with the tip of the RH, which happens a lot when low jumping, you’ll lose. Also JDable, since Blanka doesn’t have any other good ground based antiairs?
-Kinda hard to deal with Sagat’s low jump RH, especially max range. If it’s a max range one, and you react after he’s already in the air, you might want to just backhop and keep the situation “even”. With Blanka, the proper reaction to, I think he’s going to low jump, would either be to press cr. HP before he gets off the ground, jump forward yourself with RH, straight up low jump fierce (? I don’t use this one a lot) or simply move away so you don’t have to deal with it.
-If you’re friend is raged up, and likes to do low jump RH -> super if he sees the RH connects, try doing Blanka Ball at the last second. Its not uncommon to see people fire off the super by accident, simply because it looks like a hit, but then Blanka flips to his feet. Backhop doesn’t get you off the ground instantly, so its not so good. I kinda like this one, simply because at worst, you eat a j. RH. If the other guy went for an empty jump, you’ll get him before he hits the ground (no JDing in low jumps, so he either hits you and you flip, or you hit him)
-Blanka ball under to runaway if he gets careless, and tries to continue a guardcrush pattern with j. short (since Blanka’s right on top of himself antiairs aren’t too hot?)
-I’m seriously playing with the idea of not JDing entire tiger uppercuts. If you JD a deep tiger uppercut, Sagat recovers before you do. I’ve had some luck trading off with the last few hits of the uppercut with an attack, so TU can earn you some nice rage meter, plus the damage trades in your favour. Sadly, you get knocked down a lot, but eh. I usually fail on JDing the whole thing anyways, so I guess I’ll take the extra damage. Wonder if there’s a move that beats out the last hits clean?

JD thoughts:
Sagat:
st. jab: I’ve posted my thoughts on this one in the other thread. Basically, JDing it gets you nowhere. Outside of a super, Blanka has no good reversal in K-groove. So after a knockdown, Sagat should be pretty comfortable running up and chaining a few jabs to negate JD, then do his close up tricks. Kinda forces Blanka to block on wakeup more or less. If you’re gutsy, you could try blanka balling in between the st. jabs. Counterhitting a Blanka ball just causes Blanka to flip to his feet, so if the other guy’s only running a basic counterhit st. jab or throw mixup, you can get away kinda. Backhop can get you fierced even if they whiff the st. jab, so its like a ghetto backhop.

cr. LK:
Leaves you dead even. Sagat’s cr. LK is faster though, plus he’s the aggressor, so if it’s part of a poke string, you’ll get counterhit if he presses a button. If he’s not careful though, and was going for a throw, or was counting on same frame advantage from the short to walk forward or something, then you can get a piece of him. Just be aware that if you try to match your cr. LK to his after a JD, you’ll get the short end of the stick if he was trying.

st. LK:
You can’t this back for guaranteed damage, but the minus is enough that Sagat probably won’t be pressing buttons after the JD. So press cr. RH or cr. HP or something to get a piece of his guard bar. You may wish to delay your button press, once the other guy starts JDing after the JD’d st. LK.

st. MK:
Huge minus if JD’d. I don’t think I can say anything useful here.

cr. MK:
If JD’d, leaves Sagat at -7. Looks bad on paper, but realize this. If you try to hit him back with cr. HP or cr. RH, he’ll always be able to block in time. If he attempts to JD after his cr. MK, the effective recovery drops to -6. Blanka’s d. MK is 5 frame startup, so if the other guy’s smart, you really only have a 1 frame window for “guaranteed” punishment with cr. MK -> ball. If you try, half the time you get d. MK -> blocked ball and die. So yeah, you pretty much have to go for cr. short -> ball, or cr. jab -> ball. 2 frame window if they attempt a JD, 3 frame if they don’t. Timings tight, so you may wish to just get them to eat the cr. LK, and start your own close up game instead of going for a ball.
Of course if he cancels into a tiger shot and THAT gets JD’d, its open season on him. Just saying its probably safer for Sagat NOT to cancel if his cr. MK gets JD’d.

cr. HP:
Uhh… nothing I can say here that everybody doesn’t already know.

Blanka (getting JD’d):

cr. LK:
Leaves you on even footing. So be aware that occasionally, if you follow up your JD’d cr. LK with another, you’ll occasionally get hit by Sagat’s own cr. LK or st. jab or something, or even trade off with a cr. MK. If the other guy’s brave, it’s not uncommon to see them try to either uppercut if they expect you to press a button (4 frame window means if they go for it, they probably won’t miss, so you’d have to NOT press a button). And once you stop pressing buttons, they’ll start pressing their own back. You might have some luck low jump RHing after a JD’d short, especially since they might whiff something (most people are sloppy reacting to JD’s).

st. MP:
As mentioned above, your only meaty that guarantees you a + or at worst even, even on JD. I guess if you were gonna meaty, do it with this? You’ll still want to hit it meaty, since Sagat has that 2 frame jab of cheese. Or just go for the HP electricity meaty and sit on them. That’s safe on JD…

st. HP:
I don’t encourage meatying with this. If they JD, unless you hit later than 2/3’s in, you’ll end up at a minus. Sagat has a 2 frame jab, and Blanka’s most reliable move up close move is cr. short, which is 4 frame. Blanka starts at -8, 12 active frames, so at best +3. So, even at +2, there’s still a chance you’ll end up trading. So yeah. Stay away from meatying with this one I guess.

cr. MK:
Leaves you at -2 when JD’d. So be careful of continuing a poke string when JD’d. Like Blanka up close, does something like cr. LK, cr. MK, cr. MK, cr. HP or something like that. If the first MK gets JD’d, you might very well get counterhit out of the second MK. If Sagat is looking for it and goes cr. MK after the JD to challenge yours, there’s a 3 frame window where his move will land before yours. So just be careful. Also that means you need to be careful meatying up close with this. At best +3. Worst is -2. So usually about even or so in JD. Which isn’t so good, since Sagat mashing on jab might end up eating your guard bar, instead of you eating his.

cr. RH:
Safer on JD than it looks I guess. At the range you’ll be using it at, hopefully only Sagat’s cr. HP will reach, 7 frame startup. cr. RH is -8, but cut it to -7 with JD. So JD, and he shouldn’t be able to ever tag you with anything guaranteed. I guess. Outside of getting supered? I don’t think Sagat’s supers will even reach in time. They all have 8+ frame startup? I don’t think freeze prevents you from blocking in this situation. You might lose some guard bar, but at least you won’t be losing your life, eh?

cr. HP:
If JD’d, -9. This is for the “2nd” hit. If the first one gets JD’d… well you’re going to get hurt. Badly. Anyways, far cr. HP JD’d isn’t that bad I guess. 1 frame to hit back with Sagat cr. HP, even is he was in range. Just JD after it I guess.

k-blanka is really weak in defensive against sagat, never think to wait and jd ur opponent attack.
only think to jd when u attacking… hard to explain, but this is my k-blanka against sagat.
work well for me.

just need to be offensive against sagat, always jump in into sagat to jd his hp dp, normally u only need to jd 10 hits(times), then can landing to attack. (sometime need 12-14 times)

of cause not everyone will do dp when u jump in, but it make life easier.

fuck all that shit they just said.

use k blanka

press c.fierce.

if he uses too much s.lk then use s.mp. and do low jump rh too.

use K-blankaR4 and see if he still loses.

… play more blanka vs sagat, “press c.fierce”… sure die against sagat.

of cause low jump hk & mk (crossover) is the main thing for k-groove.

Use c.fierce less, ALOT less, both the slide and regular, both can easily be punished by Sagat on JD.
Rely more on low jump RH and c.short.

If you really arent comfortable with the matchups when starting Blanka… why dont you just start Geese?

… ???

ha, u remind me 1 thing.

when Sagat j.hk with full super meter, CAN NOT jd the j.hk on standing!!
u will eat the qcb, qcb +k lvl.3 super… :sad:

damn, pro at cvs2 and english. gg

Damn, Dentron. You beat me to it.

On topic:
Blanka vs Sagat isn’t a bad matchup. Watch those random ass Fierces that Sagat throws. If he jumps, please try to antiair him. Or at least hop back so you don’t get j.lk s.jab x whatever and all of a sudden your guard is flashing. Don’t antiair with the slide. Cuz JDed = s.fierce XX Tiger uppercut at least, then guess what? He can j.lk s.jab you forever. If Sagat had meter and he JDed the slide after jumping in, GG cuz its c.mk Cannon, Raid, whatever.

when i’m blanka vs. sagat i just mash low fierce… shit is unstoppable

damn jesse, youre hella late. get on the ball.

You’ve been getting on that ball for years :wink: Hey we might come down to uci tonight

Go get 'em Jesse!!! K-Honda, King, Rock!!!

i fucking hate you leezy…!!!

fine come to uci, its my friends birfday so we might do a little drinkin