Just been over to the Nash forum, they reckon Ken is Nash’s worst match up.
Frost
5
The only way Nash can really capitalize and dominate Ken in the match-up is to establish a finely spaced fireball game and even then he has to be ballsy with where he throws plasma, Ken’s work around options aren’t strong enough to properly fight against some strong fireball pressure with the occasional Moonsault to get in. But people do seem to forget Nash can’t actually retaliate from knockdowns and we have some great ways to set up oki, all it takes is one counter poke to carry the entire round, or at least force Nash into a corner. Trying to play a footsie game against Nash won’t get you far, and giving Nash the space to freely throw fireballs and threaten things like Moonsault/dash - throw is only gonna get you bodied, I recommend the Chris T approach - rushdown, and rushdown a lot. Force the corner through a counter poke or a hit confirm, and get to work on your pressure - lows/throws/overheads/shimmies. You have the tools to make Nash second guess himself again and again, remember he doesn’t have a reversal option so his defence has to be on point, capitalize on this and go HAM when given opportunity. You can also stop most of his annoying pokes, at least somewhat. You have a counter-poke to each of his step kicks and the bazooka knee, use st.lp to stuff the bazooka knee, you can try to use it for the other two step kicks but it won’t be as effective as it’s a lot less lenient. You can use st.mp to stuff both of his step kicks, just get a read and throw it out now and again to scare him away from using those moves, it should give you the edge you need in the neutral to close the gap. Moonsault is NOT an issue vs. Ken, MP DP and cr.hp both beat it cleanly, if he sets up the Moonsault behind a fireball just neutral jump mp/hp depending on where he is in the arc.
Not as bad as Chun or Vega, nowhere near as bad as Necalli. I’d probably call it a 5-5, Nash doesn’t really shine against Ken.
That’s just the Nash board overreacting. Froztey pretty much got it. It’s an even MU. Both characters have things that work against each other.
I play Ken and Nash and I think this MU is in Ken’s favor
Valoon
8
I do have a lot of trouble against Nash players who do the sonic booms > get in your face > back up > sonic booms > get in your face correctly. Any tips?
Sometimes my anti-air whiff on their move flip thingy in the air.
From what I’ve seen Nash is kinda free once you put him in the corner tho. you just have to watch for his vtrigger/vreversal.
You could try and jump the fb to make him not want to throw it as much. Obvious I know
Valoon
10
He has like 2 billions anti airs that come out super fast.
Wasted
11
Ken has an invincible anti-air that is faster than basically any of Nash’s.
What’s your point?
Valoon
12
That I am looking at a solution to get in his face and jumping at him definitly doesn’t seem like one.
Is this the asshole thread? Because everywhere else seems fine on this forum and I get two in a row here.
Do what gief does, walk forward, block the fireball, creep forward more.
You’re going to have to have some balls to get in
Yeah. Bulldog in and keep your anti airs on point. Make the most of the corner once you get it.
Match is like 7-3 nash until he gets knocked on his back, then its 7-3 Ken. The key is not to get so discouraged during the neutral game that you miss crucial anti airs or fail to capitalise when you finally get the knockdown.
I really suck at this match up though. So pinch of salt.
nom
15
There’s no way this matchup is 5-5. Go do a replay search between Ken VS Nash. Literally over 80% is Nash win for 5000LP+. Go take a look I dare you.
The matchup has the potential to be 5-5 but for now I’d give it a 6-4 in nash’s favor, maybe even in ken’s. The game is still too new to really tell right now. Nash has a lot of moves that are specific/counter-intuitive to punish as ken, also getting used to blowing up other things like his v-trigger will play a huge role in the evolution of this matchup. I’ve lost dozens of times to nash players knowing full well that as time goes by and as my pattern recognition starts to kick in to the point where it’s muscle memory then they won’t be getting away with a lot of things. Just knowing certain punishes on paper doesn’t mean squat till you have them ingrained in your gameplay
We’re also at that point where ken’s offense isn’t flushed out, just playing ken regardless of the matchup imo is ridiculously hard. Not really because of his shortcomings, but just the amount of time you have to put into being on point with his basic hit confirms. He’s a precision character with a high skill cap so even players at 5000 lp + most likely won’t be close to mastering his tools. I’m 500 ish lp away from platinum myself and I know for a fact that I only have a fraction of the understanding necessary to play ken at his full potential. Every day I become aware that the bucket list of things to master is even bigger than I expected with this character
Frost
17
Yeah, Ken’s skillcap makes it difficult to gauge match-ups at the moment. I’d wait until we see some more solid offline events showcase the match-up, the Joe vs Julio matches weren’t a shining example IMO either even though Joe bopped Julio.
I thought it was a great example. Julio demonstrated that the to just react to nash’s v trig and swat him out of the air, good punishes, an oppressive neutral. At the end of the day julio didn’t make the adjustments he needed to counter-adapt to joe but the matches were still close and very insightful
Frost
19
I don’t feel like his neutral was very oppressive/aggressive though that’s where I feel he let Joe compose and make adjustments, he seemed to respect a lot more as the game went on and fizzled out towards the end.
Would you guys (Frosty and MochaLatte) mind elaborating more on the things you see so difficult to master with Ken or as Mocha put it “the depth of the bucket list”. Please and thank you!!
The thing that keeps getting me is Moonsault Slash, the recovery on this just seems insanely quick, I play a Nash player regularly who seems to be able to throw out a M version that I block but seems that the recovery is so quick I can’t stick out a poke to punish.
Also if you do Moonsault Slash close to an opponent it goes over them and if you are not anticipating it Nash recovers quick enough to throw you.
Plus Sonic boom into Moonsault Slash seems to be much faster then it should be.
Moonsault Slash you will have to stuff during the start-up before it hits you because they’re all + on block. It’s reactable with cr.hp if you’re not fast enough to dp it, you might trade but dmg wise it’s in your favour and you don’t have to deal with the combo or mixup after it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTdtjVc2-TY
Even though he lost, he dropped a lot of opportunities for damage. This is how we should be playing Nash. Stay grounded, punish tricks.
