Ken Match-ups Thread: "Strong fighters such as yourself make it worth staying in shape!"

[Rizhall]

Thread made to discuss all of Ken’s match-ups in Street Fighter V.
Any key notes or write-ups will be added to the beginning of this thread to make all of the useful information easy to find.
Will try to update frequently.
Characters will be arranged alphabetically for the initial cast, and in order of release for all future characters.

If there is information that you think may be false, not helpful, or otherwise should not be in here, you may mention it here or PM me about it.

If there are terms you don’t understand, do check the SRK Glossary before asking here.
AND DON’T FORGET TO ANTIAIR!

Launch Characters:

vs. Birdie

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

f.HP: b.MP xx

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Cammy

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

V-Skill: s.HP crush counter

Useful Information to Know

Can alter jump times with divekick to make normals whiff as antiair.
Very frame-trap heavy, be patient on defense.
Her throws aren’t too dangerous because they neutralize the situation if you’re not cornered.

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Chun-li

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

b.MP is very effective for whiff-punishing in this matchup. (ZAYMAX)

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Dhalsim

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

A lot of his limbs can be whiff-punished from long range.
Always keep an eye out to counter teleport.

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. F.A.N.G.

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Medium Tatsu.

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Karin

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Max distance sweep: LP Shoryuken, Critical Art

Punishing on Reaction

Sweep: s.LK xx MK Tatsumaki (MochaLatte)

Useful Information to Know

-Don’t whiff s.HK or cr.MK around Karin if the player’s got good footsie reactions. She can punish you for free with her cr.MK.

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

At first I thought the sweet spot for this match would be the max range for Ken’s s.HK, but after playing and experimenting in matches, I found this space to be not so good. Karin’s normals are really hard to contest for Ken, and I think the main “poke” for Ken is gonna be hadouken in this match because of how buttonsy this character ends up being most of the time. The problem is, at this range, if you do a hadouken from this range, her sweep and other moves can hit you because of your forward movement as you throw it.

Thus I believe the optimal range to be at for this match is actually about 1.5 character widths from the character, basically the range where you can throw a hadouken without her being able to hit you for it. At this range, it’s extremely hard for her to react with EX Sappo or Ressenha.
You can also harass her with f.HK overheads and fake steps, dash in for a quick burst of pressure if she whiffs, or step up and poke with s.HK. This range also gives you more time to react to her walking forward so she can’t just step in and tap you with a cr.MK for free. As you harass her with the overheads and dashes and whatever else you want, she’ll naturally want to start pressing more buttons to stop these tools, making your hadouken that much more potent.
If she catches on and starts to walk in and block hadoukens while closing distance, that’s when you can start using your pokes like s.HK and cr.MK in short bursts. Your cr.MK is actually pretty good at beating a bunch of her footsie tools up close, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile to stay in that range too long.
And of course, make sure those antiairs are on-point, or all is lost
If they’re a Karin that likes to use s.MK liberally in footsies, you can stuff this out with s.MP before hers comes out and buffer it for some added damage.

In short, the main strategy right now feels like, instead of trying to contest her in footsies (which is POSSIBLE but risky), Ken can pretty effectively nullify her footsies while still keeping pressure on her because of his fast movement options.

A few side notes:
I’ve been able to beat all of Karin’s antiairs with varied jumpins, usually switching between various angles of air tatsus, early j.HP’s, crossup j.MKs, and max range j.HK’s. It feels, at the moment at least, that she has to make the correct read to antiair Ken if he mixes up his approaches.

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Ken

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Laura

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. M. Bison

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Special step where he jumps at you can be DP’d on reaction (heavy version is best since it reaches further)
You can whiff punish his slide with a target combo
Be careful how you place your fireballs because he can dash through them
Lacks a reversal, terrible walkspeed. Mostly like to attempt to dash out off the grounds on wake up
Patience is key to beating him

Neutral jump when he has charge once in awhile to scare them out of doing scissor kicks
Always be looking for his forward dash, punish with b.mp and confirm
If they’re being predictable with st.mk then you can whiff punish with b.mp into ex tatsu or b.mp into mk tatsu into gecko’s oki
If they’re trying to bully with df.hp then bait it out with ken’s walk-speed, it’s pretty easy to whiff punish with tc2.

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Nash

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

f.HP (not max distance): EX Tatsumaki, Critical Art

Punishing on Reaction

Moonsault Slash: cr.HP, DP

Useful Information to Know

Slow walkspeed, so you can play footsie effectively against him.
Far dash! Be wary of dash throws, and dash throw baiting.
When they do a shimmy, they’ll usually do s.HP and cancel it into a special. React to the special accordingly.

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Necalli

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Effectively outfootsie him.
His invincible wakeup attacks don’t hit low, so you can meaty him low effectively to improve your okizeme against him.

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. R. Mika

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Sweep: TC1 xx (MochaLatte)

Punishing on Reaction

Charged s.HK: s.LP, b.MP, MP Shoryuken (MochaLatte)

Useful Information to Know

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Rashid

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Divekick: Shoryuken

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

-Light Spin Mixer is -2. Use s.LP to steal momentum and mixup/confirm damage. (r0nbath)

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Okay, so I’ve played only 2 so far, but here’s how the matches went down. I like to play ken a bit more methodical and slower, so I played this one really patiently. Rashid in the long range has only a few options for an approach, which can be beat out rather easily. The spin move he does I found out I can beat out fairly consistently with cr.MP and the lunge attack, which is a bit more tricky to punish, but if you react to the hit, you can hit him with st.MK out of what he could use to follow up with. Mid range, Rashid is dangerous, he can get around you pretty easily if you try to stay in the mid range, so just camp out in the long range and play it patient, use the clock, and punish any approaches he has. That or stay on top of him, because it seems like we can destroy him in close range.

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Ryu

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Pay attention to his hadouken PATTERNS.
s.HK and s.HP at proper ranges can stuff his hadouken on startup. (J.D.E.)

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Vega

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Useful Videos

Spoiler

vs. Zangief

Spoiler

Punishing on Block

Punishing on Reaction

Useful Information to Know

Playing at s.HK range and harassing with kicks is effective.
Because his grabs are 5 frame, you can effectively pressure him.

Detailed Write-ups

Spoiler

Like vs Karin, I do think Ken’s hadouken is very effective at a somewhat semiclose-mid range. Basically you wanna be at just the right range that if he were to v-skill > SPD your hadouken, he whiffs. As you harass him and staying on point with antiairs, he’ll have to start taking risks to get in, that’s when you can start reacting to his moves and punishing them.

The occasional burst of offense here and there, filled with jab frame traps seems to be effective against him, as long as you make sure to get away from his SPD range if he successfully blocks it. Dashing in, getting some quick offense in, and then backdashing if I don’t get anything out of it, seems hard for Gief to deal with.

In this matchup, s.MK is a really decent poke against gief as well, because of the angle it covers, as well as being able to confirm into more damage.

Either neutral jump or jump behind him when he attempts to grab; punish accordingly
Has trouble if you play him outside of crMK with Ken’s st MK & st HK range (longest reaching normal); fireballing him isn’t a bad idea
Cyclone windmill draws you near him
Going air to air with him is an iffy thing to do. He has an air grab
Does a ton of damage; 1 mistake can be fatal
He wants you to be at least 3 steps away from him; he doesnt’ have as much range

Useful Videos

Spoiler

[Landonio]

I could be wrong, but I feel like Rashid is a touch match-up for Ken. Any advice? Those mixers are so good.

[Ragnaroq]

I could be wrong, but I feel like Rashid is a touch match-up for Ken. Any advice? Those mixers are so good.

Okay, so I’ve played only 2 so far, but here’s how the matches went down. I like to play ken a bit more methodical and slower, so I played this one really patiently. Rashid in the long range has only a few options for an approach, which can be beat out rather easily. The spin move he does I found out I can beat out fairly consistently with cr.MP and the lunge attack, which is a bit more tricky to punish, but if you react to the hit, you can hit him with st.MK out of what he could use to follow up with. Mid range, Rashid is dangerous, he can get around you pretty easily if you try to stay in the mid range, so just camp out in the long range and play it patient, use the clock, and punish any approaches he has. That or stay on top of him, because it seems like we can destroy him in close range.

[Ragnaroq]

So far, the matchups I have trouble with are Nash and Ryu. I can see Karin being a problem as people get better. Any ideas?

[Frost]

I’ve always struggled with Gief in every Street Fighter, I have a personal fear of his presence in footsies and my spacing is usually really bad because of it. In SF5 Ken feels like he has a pretty damn tough time against Gief because of his poor normal ability, granted SPD isn’t mashable anymore but having to get close to Gief is still crazy talk. The fireball game really isn’t strong against him either due to his V-Skill/V-Trigger.

I wanna run a tool analysis character vs. character with someone, that match-up has forever been my kryptonite.

[Rizhall]

For vs Karin:
At first I thought the sweet spot for this match would be the max range for Ken’s s.HK, but after playing and experimenting in matches, I found this space to be not so good. Karin’s normals are really hard to contest for Ken, and I think the main “poke” for Ken is gonna be hadouken in this match because of how buttonsy this character ends up being most of the time. The problem is, at this range, if you do a hadouken from this range, her sweep and other moves can hit you because of your forward movement as you throw it.

Thus I believe the optimal range to be at for this match is actually about 1.5 character widths from the character, basically the range where you can throw a hadouken without her being able to hit you for it. At this range, it’s extremely hard for her to react with EX Sappo or Ressenha.
You can also harass her with f.HK overheads and fake steps, dash in for a quick burst of pressure if she whiffs, or step up and poke with s.HK. This range also gives you more time to react to her walking forward so she can’t just step in and tap you with a cr.MK for free. As you harass her with the overheads and dashes and whatever else you want, she’ll naturally want to start pressing more buttons to stop these tools, making your hadouken that much more potent.
If she catches on and starts to walk in and block hadoukens while closing distance, that’s when you can start using your pokes like s.HK and cr.MK in short bursts. Your cr.MK is actually pretty good at beating a bunch of her footsie tools up close, but I don’t think it’s worthwhile to stay in that range too long.
And of course, make sure those antiairs are on-point, or all is lost

In short, the main strategy right now feels like, instead of trying to contest her in footsies (which is POSSIBLE but risky), Ken can pretty effectively nullify her footsies while still keeping pressure on her because of his fast movement options.

A few side notes:
I’ve been able to beat all of Karin’s antiairs with varied jumpins, usually switching between various angles of air tatsus, early j.HP’s, crossup j.MKs, and max range j.HK’s. It feels, at the moment at least, that she has to make the correct read to antiair Ken if he mixes up his approaches.

For the love of god don’t whiff s.HK or cr.MK around Karin if the player’s got good footsie reactions. She can punish you for free with her cr.MK.

If you block a max distance sweep, you can punish it with LP shoryuken if you’re fast enough.

If you block ANY mujinkyaku, you can immediately HP shoryuken if you’re fast enough.

[Rizhall]

I’ve always struggled with Gief in every Street Fighter, I have a personal fear of his presence in footsies and my spacing is usually really bad because of it. In SF5 Ken feels like he has a pretty damn tough time against Gief because of his poor normal ability, granted SPD isn’t mashable anymore but having to get close to Gief is still crazy talk. The fireball game really isn’t strong against him either due to his V-Skill/V-Trigger.

I wanna run a tool analysis character vs. character with someone, that match-up has forever been my kryptonite.

I’ve had a few matches against a good Gief at Next Level, and while it’s still early and I don’t have TOO much knowledge on the match as of yet, I’ll post some points that I found effective.

Like vs Karin, I do think Ken’s hadouken is very effective at a somewhat semiclose-mid range. Basically you wanna be at just the right range that if he were to v-skill > SPD your hadouken, he whiffs. As you harass him and staying on point with antiairs, he’ll have to start taking risks to get in, that’s when you can start reacting to his moves and punishing them.

The occasional burst of offense here and there, filled with jab frame traps seems to be effective against him, as long as you make sure to get away from his SPD range if he successfully blocks it. Dashing in, getting some quick offense in, and then backdashing if I don’t get anything out of it, seems hard for Gief to deal with.

[Kraftik]

Does anyone have any good info on dealing with Vega? When he has his claw on it just feels like he can poke me to death without me being able to so anything in return. He also has alot of ways to deal with fireballs especially if he gets V trigger it becomes suicide to throw them.

[Rizhall]

Does anyone have any good info on dealing with Vega? When he has his claw on it just feels like he can poke me to death without me being able to so anything in return. He also has alot of ways to deal with fireballs especially if he gets V trigger it becomes suicide to throw them.

I’ll be practicing that matchup today or tomorrow, I’ll see what I can muster up after a set.

[MochaLatte]

Been mostly messing around with Ken’s buttons against Karin, Nash, and Birdie in Training mode. There’s definitely way more but I wanted to get at least a start on how to approach the neutral

Karin’s low forward and CR.HK Can be whiff punished with st.lk into mk.tatsu with relative ease. Her crouching roundhouse is way easier to whiff punish obviously
Karin’s standing forward and low forward can be whiff punished by st.mk into st.hk tc xx HP SRK
Standing forward can be punished on whiff by Ken’s B.mp into ex tatsu

Nash’s F.HP can usually be punished on block by ex tatsu unless it’s max or near max range, can also be punished by super on block if it’s deep enough
His low forward is tricky, you can whiff punish with st.lk into ex tatsu but you have to be hitting his body during recovery for it to connect, not just his extended limb. It’s actually practical to whiff punish with st.hk on reaction to the first visual cue that he’s throwing out a limb

Birdie’s armored tackle move (The unique move he has, not the special move) is punishable on block from every range I’ve tried so far. Best punish I could find is b.mp straight into HP SRK or ex tatsu. Trying to punish with the tc will result in the second hit whiffing

His normals are hard to deal with since ken can’t really get much off of a whiff punish. The most damaging options I found were whiff punishing his mid normals with cr.hp straight into v-trigger xx combo since trying to cancel into ex tatsu isn’t consistent. Will come back with more info after I put more time into it

[WaterSnake]

Any ideas about the Chun Li MU ? I’m a little scary about her right now

[r0nbath]

Any Rashid advice? I know his stupid light tornado spin(spinning mixer) leaves him at -2. Best bet would be to V-reversal I guess

[otori]

Hit s.lp, b.mp after it and hitconfirm. Occasionally do s.lp, throw.

[r0nbath]

Hit s.lp, b.mp after it and hitconfirm. Occasionally do s.lp, throw.

After Rashids spin attack? I need to try this!

[toxic-sock]

Anyone figured out the match up with F.A.N.G yet?

[pololoco]

Hello everyone! I have a lot of trouble with the R Mika matchup. I know some basic things like to v reversal after her charged roundhouse but she always destroys me in the corner and rushes me down. Any advice?

[toxic-sock]

Hello everyone! I have a lot of trouble with the R Mika matchup. I know some basic things like to v reversal after her charged roundhouse but she always destroys me in the corner and rushes me down. Any advice?

If you block the charged roundhouse and expect her to grab you can also medium or heavy dp to beat it, st. lk can be used to confirm.

[WaterSnake]

Looks like we’re in trouble in a LOT of MU … Karin, Bison, Vega, Mika, Chun, Nash …

[MochaLatte]

Hello everyone! I have a lot of trouble with the R Mika matchup. I know some basic things like to v reversal after her charged roundhouse but she always destroys me in the corner and rushes me down. Any advice?

It’s going to be a bad situation if you’re in the corner regardless of the character. She has strong mixups and you’re gonna have to guess/fight your way out of the corner, don’t beat yourself up for not guessing right and keep a strong mentality.

It’s very reasonable to react to her charged roundhouse with b.mp and st.lp, I found these buttons to be the most consistent in stuffing it since the startup is only 4 frames. You get an air reset but I haven’t experimented with it enough to find an optimal setup. You can also dragon punch it on reaction but it’s not exactly a cake-walk, I can only do it consistently myself on the right side. Realistically you won’t always be ready with the dp for a move like that but it really sends a message and screws with them psychologically. I also like to neutral jump once in a while

I’ve never not been able to punish her slide move with b.mp into st.hp tc xx shoryu.

Anti air

Her butt slam move is punishable on block

Don’t let her dash in for free, react with b.mp and confirm into a combo or st.lp st.lk confirm into srk.

I also like to counter-poke/whiff punish with the st.mk st.hk tc but then again I believe that this works in pretty much any matchup.

Poke with fireballs right outside your poke ranges once in a while

[r0nbath]

I love you guys