you beat akuma on the ground. you punish his footsies easy with shippu. you punish his tatsumakis with srk. ken’s air ex tatsumaki will work wonders if he attacks from air. there is not much for ken to fear tbh. kind of like vs ryu. you have the advantages on your side. it all comes down to how well you can play shoto vs shoto. but really, akuma should fear you.
what exactly is it you have problem with?
I usually have problems getting out of akumas corner game, and also with his rushdowns. Other than that, when im on the offense akuma is nothing.
Just block, if he starts dashing, predict it, punish him for it. And you’re out of the corner. Another one is using the tech distance on throws, but be carefull not to dash in right afterwards, since some players will put out a poke regulary.
What about punishing and getting out of his demon flip mixups? Any good tips on that?
Parry/Shoryu on reaction if you can… It’s big damage and he’s fully of defensive holes while he’s in the flip (ie. can’t parry) anyway, and if your hits trade it’s in your favor. You can try dashing/walking under (depending on the strength of his flip) and punishing with cr.mk xx SAIII if you can, or mp,hp chain if you’re in range. If you miscalculate your distances, however, it could get you thrown.
Shoryu could get stuffed by meaty dive kicks though (I think), so if the Akuma tends to meaty you you could always try to parry.
EDIT: But generally Akumas don’t use their dives alot against Ken.
HP,EX shoryuken will always beat demon flip. So use that whenever possible.
New Matchup Analasis
Vs. Alex:
Ken vs. Alex to me is easy, dunno why, maybe just the way I play, for an Alex player to beat me they actually have to be better than me(which isn’t hard) otherwise good luck, but anyway Alex can stun you easy as you know, the key in this match as with most if you’re a Ken player is knowledge, you have to know when to be on Alex and when to lay off, tick throws and keeping yourself at mid-range work well, baiting his throws might not be such a good idea because of his throw speed, but if you can do it then throw that in there, remember to mixup your dash ins with c.mk/c.lkx2, target combo, and throw. Now don’t go thinking Alex is no threat now because if you take a knockdown when you have no meter he can destroy you with standing Heavy Punch, powerbomb, stomp. Stay away from corners and you should be fine, standard anti-airs(SRK/Air EX Tatsus) will work nicely, Alex really has nothing to do in the air anyway. gauge his reactions to certain things and attack accordingly for example, the alex player i play against usualy pokes at me after a standing mk so I SRK a guaranteed hit almost all the time. The Rundown, unlike alotta characters Alex with meter isn’t so scary, he needs his EX so he won’t be using his actual super too much. just mix it up, get some knockdowns, find when you can land super and do so. It shouldn’t be too hard, considering his main move in my opinion(EX Slash Elbow) can be beat by SRK if you see it coming, which actually isn’t that hard after just playing against alex for a while
Ken vs. Dudley
My favorite matchup for some weird reason, I don’t play it well or anything, but I just love it, this one’s all about momentum, and said momentum can be switched at anytime with an EX uppercut on either side. While Ken’s got some pretty good pokes Dudsworth Diddy can juggle you to hell and has his standing Roundhouse to EX MGB. landing supers is essential to both parties. I find Ex hadous,standing RH and Standing MK will keep him out. besides Standing Rh Dudley unlike yourself doesn’t have many great pokes so try to bait those not so great pokes and c.shortx2 or c.mk/c.mp into super. try to keep dudsworth down because if he gets on you it’s kinda over unless he’s not smart enough to watch out for EX SRKs on wakeup.
Vs elena?
Against Alex…in my honest experience playing as/against both Alex and Ken, Alex wants to keep the pace changing for Ken in order to keep Ken guessing on what to do.
Keep the pace somewhere that you’re comfortable at. Control the flow of the match, essentially. Most of his stuff is easily punishable, anyway, so already, he’s on the downside of things, so use that to your advantage.
Um not really? Spacing is still important, it’s not like you can always be up close against Chun with meter. The whole deal is just using your moves appropriately. EX fireball is still great from just outside of Chun’s c.forward range (but Chun’s look for it so add other stuff into the mix for sure). c.RH should only be used as a whiff punisher anyhow, just sticking it out at random is dumb.
Chun-li gets a lot more damage for landing a c.forward than you will, so it’s not the best idea to poke and play footsies for a long time- just do it long enough to score a knockdown, which is what you need to get in on her anyhow.
learn to kara-shoryuken in mid screen, rush those bitches down!! turtle if u need 8D (i.e. necro)!!
only do wakeup shoryu as last resource (lp shoryu, better get grabbed than get hit by a high damage combo), use s.hk like AA when distance allows you to, learn parry setups, grab setups, and of course get ur opponent to fall in ur mind games
hehehehe james you need play more concertrate against me but you are good …very very good
wow necro vs ken is a very interesting mach up
Ken vs. Elena is pretty simple, just watch out for B.RH so don’t always go for throws in the obvious moments. 'cause that thing can do some decent stun and damage so its not a good idea to get hit by it often, she can be double shoryued without kara-ing so take advantage if you land a strong->fierce chain, stay out of her c.mp and c.lk range both can combo to brave dance, though i don’t see many elena’s besides myself who use the c.lk into the SA2, i don’t really know the properties of it, I hear its unreliable but this isn’t an Elena thread. try to keep elena on her back most of the time because then all you have to watch for is EX scratch wheel which will burn her precious meter so i don’t think she’ll use it too often. Ken shouldn’t have a problem other than watching out for b.RH, she’s just Chun without the ability to combo into her super from pretty much anything. I can’t really see what else to add other than just don’t get hit by super and keep the match at a tempo you’re comfortable with and try not to get knocked down or get on the defensive if you can help it, her mixup is incredible. So just keep all the pressure on Elena and you shouldn’t have too much problem. Just remember this throughout the whole match, no matter where I am i can dish damage, but unless she hits c.mp she can’t even chip me.
I saw Hirai doing backjump HP rather then shoryukens, asked around and people advise me to use that rather then shoryukens.
“it’s not like you can always be up close against Chun with meter.” yes you can, that’s basicly how you turn a normal match into a onesided rape. To be more exact, that is what Chun-Li should prevent you from doing the entire match. The moment she fails should be the moment she loses.
Futhermore, Chun’s SA2 is a cheap way to get high damage, but this damage isn’t out of Ken’s reach. Ken takes damage away in a much smoother way compared to Chun and if done right, the only thing Chun’s super will do is catch up.
LoL @ GoLD’ReaveR’s “Ken takes damage away in a much smoother way compared to Chun”
what. the. fuck is that supposed to mean
Am i doing ok with these matchups here? I haven’t really seen this thread around and understandably so, people think Ken is easy to use but he actually requires the most thinking out of the top tier IMO, and I wanna make sure that this is a good thread to come for info on his matchups.
What I mean is, while Chun does big damage with 2 hits, Ken does “smaller” damage nearly any hit with much more occasions that usually occur sooner. It’s hard to find the proper word for it for this dutch boy:P
Ken d aman
Ken masters FTW
New ones here(The low tier update)
Vs. Twelve: now i know what you’re thinking “Why do i need help with Twelve?” Well seeing Yamazaki play that is why i decided to do this one. Now, there is the obvious stuff, kill his Air Dash with SRKs and air EX tatsus. The key in this match however is patience. Twelve will try alot of fake outs air dashing forward and backward, wait for his move which you have more time than you’d think to blast through with an SRK. Just wait for the oppurtunity to beast on him, this should come after the knockdown. Then just watch out for the wakeup throw as with any other match and this is an automatic win, he really can’t do anything with you on top of him.
Vs. Q
I find this match really easy as should you, unless the person playing is Kuroda or someone close. Q like Twelve has no wake up so this means once you get on to of him the match is pretty much one, don’t let any taunts get in unless you feel like breaking Qs face some more, also don’t punish his lp dash punch, just don’t do it, you might eat a Super, go ahead try it, but i assure you it will end up bad for you, because Q can damage you unlike Twelve, with his St. MkxDash punchxxSA 1 or 2 and his continuous command grab ticks. just don’t let him breathe there’s no need for solid defence here it only seals the deal if you have one.(p.s. i have an easy time with Q granted i’ve only faced 2 so sometimes i let him taunt just to break his face, only when i’m not serious though)
Vs. Sean
don’t take him lightly, he can dish damage, it’s just he has alot of punishable moves, Shippu his c.HK, he has EX dp I’d suggest throwing him back down for the most part since its throwable, and he’ll know he can’t do it, just don’t fall for his mixups is all and you’ll own him, nothing left to be said basically its like a Ken mirror except alot easier and you can do things you can’t do in the Ken match