Yamazaki. Kim is the first :-p
Ill post what I know and stuff about him when I have time but I figured Id make a thread so others could discuss what they know.
C-Yama:
RC dust is a great meter builder, and a great tool against small characters.
st.MP, cr.HP, j.hp, st.hk (at a distance) antiairs.
cr.lpx2, dust kick xx snake arms, Bnb.
st.HK, mp snake arms, great zoning tools, safe on MAX RANGE JD. Be careful of rolls, these moves can be punished.
cr.lp x2, st.hp, dp MP (knife stab) great guard crush string.
IMHO, C is his best groove, NOT ONLY from his stored lvl2 (very useful AND always there AA, or his cr.lp x2 xx lvl2 hitconfirm), but CHICKEN GUARD. After a succesful CG, a lvl2 grab is pretty much guaranteed.
Later: a few matchups notes.
yama is the only reason why i use C groove. i think hes underrated. he fights against most of the commonly used characters pretty well but also quite a few bad matches.
his good matches (matchups that are either pretty even, in his favor or slight disadvantage): blanka, cammy, chun, ken, kyo, iori, geese, rock
bad matches (matchups where hes at a clear disadvantage): sagat, vega, rolento, sakura, bison
his hardest match is sagats hands down. his standing lk, c.fierce, standing fierce, j.lk, standing lp, c.lk and especially his j.hk will give you the most trouble.
standing lks arent too bad, your rapid lps (standing and crouching) can go against it fairy well and the occasional rc dust.
c.fierce will beat out your standing hk when done at the same time. since yamas standing hk comes out slower than saks and have a slower walking speed, he cant use the same strats sakura does against sagats c. fierce, which is walk back and forth and press hk. but your c.hk works okay against his c.fierce in terms of punishing it and can even go under and hit him out of it at the right ranges.
his standing fierce will nab you out of the air almost every time. cant really do much except dont jump as much and only jump in after a knockdown or when opportunity arises.
c.lks and standing lps is hard to escape since hes a big character and his c.lks beats your c.lp and c.lks. best thing to do is just ac your way out of there, but this will hurt your guard bar and also yamazaki recharges his guard bar pretty slowly. if you are feeling gutsy, you can rc dust or super.
his jumping hk gives yama the biggest problem. against anticipated j.hks, you can mp slash him out of it, but if sagat knows you are going to mp slash him, he can just roll super thru it for 60% of your life. xx deus xx mentioned walkin back and using his sweep as an anti-tripguard against sagats j.hk. its a pretty good idea and i have some mixed results with it. too bad it doesnt work against low jump sagats. rc mp slash on reaction is probably the best option but that rc is harder to do than most rcs. i still can’t do it reliably but it seems good enough. the only problem is that it seems too slow at times and gives him free jump jumps.
i dont think this is a hopeless fight but its a pretty hard one. hopefully more people can give me some insight on this match.
vega is another match he loses, but imo, hes easier than sagat. on the ground, yama loses pretty badly, air to air and air to ground is where the main battle takes place. j.hp is very good against vega air to air, and so is his j.mp. you cant poke with hk since he can slide under it easily. your j.mk gives him a lot of trouble if you can get it since he cant anti air it outside of rc claw roll or flip kick. even if he uses his flip kick, i think it trades or beats it out most of the time in your favor unless he rcs it. yama has a good roll and most of vega’s punch moves are pretty laggy, its not too hard to get in by rolling. your damage output in much higher than his so dont be afraid of trading or taking risks. in fact, one needs to take risks when fight vega. so to sum it up, battle starts, jump back mk, mp, hp, build meter by kicking dust and go from there.
What exactly is chicken guard? :wtf:
When somebody does a jumping attack, you jump and block the move very low to the ground, thus landing before your opponent does and putting you at advantage.
Worst matchups are definitely Sagat, Cammy, Blanka and Rolento easily. You cannot jump on in on cammy at all. St.hk beats everything you do unless your hitbox connects with her head.
c.jab x2 st.fierce snake arm
c.jab x2 (in corner) cmd grab
c.jab x2 wait grab super
meaty c.mk link c.lk xx dust snake
meaty c.mk cmd grab (not the super)
meaty c.mk st.fierce fierce knife
whiff c.mk instant jump hk (overhead)
all the endings are interchangeable with the starters
theres a lot more options than this and you can mess up reversal timing and all that jazz by using c.lk instead of c.mk (look exactly the same)
st.mp beats sagats j.hk from a distance and a great far anti air if you dont have level 2
c.hp for anti cross up or j.hp
has probably 3rd best alpha counter in the game. VERY useful. I think you can punish safe falls with roll st.hk or c.hk depending on distance. Safe on JD? Seems it. I abuse his AC when you need momentum or Sagat/blanka is all over you. Gives you a shift in momentum and as they’re waking up you can use a c.mk pattern to build almost all of the meter back.
Has great jumpins that are hard to DP correctly. j.mk and j.lk trade with almost every normal because of the wierd angle and are very very hard to dp (maybe just for me?) from max range. Ovbiously with everything that is good, dont abuse them but they are there. I use j.hk mainly for instant overheads
best way to play yama seems to be throwing a lot of fakes and SAFE whiffs. more patience than aggresion really. getting a lead and sitting on it. annoying them with constant AC’s since you’ll always have acess to them.
I had been using Yamazaki for years but had to drop him when all the Vega whoring started. Yamazaki gets raped by Vega with no lube and a hot dog vendor hat on. If you have some sort of groove specific anti-air strategy (parry, just defense, anti-air cc) then I guess it’s feasible for Yamazaki to win, but if you are like me and dont’ have that luxury (I use him in C) then you may as well grab your ankles now.
Yamazaki vs Rolento isn’t quite as bad but it’s still pretty bad. The good thing about this fight is even though Yamazaki has a hard time anti-airing Rolento, Rolento has a hard time anti-airing Yamazaki as well, but Rolento’s mobility poses a major problem for Yamazaki. In fact, really, damn near all the top tiers do favorably against Yamazaki.
Yamazaki suffers from the same problem Sagat has; height combined with weak anti-air defense. Sagat however compensates by being a beast in all other areas, Yamazaki while having very notable attributes (damaging b&b’s, one hell of a st.rh, gimmicks for days) is nowhere near as scary. Yamazaki can demolish you when you don’t fight him often but once you get used to him he’s not that hard to beat. If he’s not a gimmick character he’s damn close.
1st off, Rolento has no problem anti airing yama at all. From every range, st.mp will either win clean or trade and still push him out (not where yama wants to be when hes lower on life). Only time st.mp wont work is when yama is jumping in from close, in that case rc scouter jab/fierce or rc qcb+punch.
2nd - Sagats weakness is only his height. Other than that he has no real weakness. He has plenty of anti airs. deep dp? St. fierce? c.fierce (some jumpins), st.hk? j.hp, high and low tiger cannon supers, jump back hp/hk
his s.rh is roll safe, s.rh is not an AA, thats just a lucky meaty catching them on their 1st few frames from jumpings.strong and c.fierce is all you really need for AA
I’m amazed at this ‘vega rapes yama’ belief that has persisted for so long. Hella don’t believe that match is in Vega’s favor. It’s a slim margin, but I can’t see Vega with the advantage. Command grab (and super version) shenanigans, RC’ed slashes, and easy anti-airs when he’s got some distance put Yama ahead. Playing him in that ‘offensive turtle’ style, where you don’t move back but don’t really push the attack either, gives Vega major headaches. The two Yama players I play with both love the Yama/Vega matchup and do very well.
EDIT for a one line answer to YMDSLTSAC -
Mostly A, also K.
You can’t say “Rolento has no problem anti airing yama at all” and then admit that he does at close ranges, especially when that’s where Yama wants to be. Also If you can RC scouter jump Yama’s jump-in at close range HALF the time he does it without shutting down the rest of your game in the process then you are clearly Leroy from the Last Dragon and can probably catch bullets with your teeth as well.
About Sagat’s anti-air game, most of the anti-airs you have listed are extremely situational and/or aren’t useful unless you were absolutely looking for the jump-in, which shuts down your ground game. In the case of the high tiger cannon super you need at least a lv2 for it not to get beat out and it’s even harder to do in a pinch than a tiger uppercut. Jump back hp/hk is decent but using a low jump groove can make it problematic.
Good players aren’t going to jump in on Sagat predicatbly. They are going to jump in on him at awkward ranges and mix it up well. It’s hard for me to explain, it’s something that must be experienced to fully understand.
Are they fighting A-Vega’s?
Are you really going to say that a deep dp which is invincible and cant be stuffed is situational? C.fierce and s.hk are the only real anti airs that are very situational and have to be psychic for or know that they work. jump back hk/hp arent hard to do against a jumping opponent. St fierce is to stop low jump attempts and far jumpins. When does C-sagat not have a level 2 anyways? Any sagat that doesnt have stored meter can just deep DP anyways. Ive never heard of anyone saying sagat has anti air problems. If he has problems anti-airing people then who doesnt?
edit:
Yama doesnt have much of a reason to be jumping from that close. He has no crossup and jumping over him would do absolutley nothing. Probably the only reason you’re going to jump from that close is for an early j.hk/instant overhead land drill or guillotine.
Dude…C-yama is GOOD against A-Vega, there I said it. The crappy part is that I can’t explain it because I have only seen the (serious) matchup twice. But the person who happened to lose with his A-Vega was Ricky. There, I’m name dropping. Now will you guys start exploring the possibilities?
Gotcha, thanks for the clarification. :bgrin:
i dont see what the big problem is with cammy.
its much easier jumping on her than she is jumping on you. her standing hk is annoying and high priority in general. but your sweep has enough distance to go under her hk and your hk has the same reach as hers. it comes out slower thats why it gets beat out when both are done at the same time.
at closer range, you can sorta jab her out of her, (his c.lp is very good) and rc dust if she gets too predictable. just dont get predictable with your rc dust since its really easy to whiff punish.
like most characters, cammy should have a hard time getting in on him
C-Yama does fairly well against Vega, if you know how to play it. If you don’t it’ll be the hardest match of your life. It’s weird to describe it.
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C-Yama vs K-Blanka/Sagat.
Mai works well against Yamazaki.
GC is probably your best bet if you cannot anti air or yours trades badly
Against Blanka
S.rh stuffs a lot of his pokes. St.mp trades with his j.hk and j.mk i believe.
C.hp beats j.mk if you hit with the tip of c.hp.
Dont GC his jumpins since he can land and block/back hop in time.
careful of RC electricty and corpse hop crossups.
Im really lost in this matchup. Help is needed