McGowan, there’s still a fundamental movement problem with your Makoto. You like to use big things to move, like jumping, dashing, and EX Hayate. Not much in between in general from the videos I’ve seen. This is a problem against more skilled opponents. This style will lose harshly to anyone skilled at AAing, horizontal space control, and whiff punishing. The key, my man, is to use more f+MP and actually walking. This also means varying your approach - Makoto’s goal isn’t some race to her enemy, it’s to score an opening/weakness in footsies, be it countering pokes, FAs, AAing, dashing against reactionary footsies (IE waiting and getting blown up), etc. A lot of times you need to close the gap with a little left, a little right, a little f+MP, whatever, or you’ll get whiff punished all day.
Work on this and you’ll see a huge difference in your game.
Here’s a few recent matches of me that I’d appreciate any critique on greatly. Feel free to be blunt and harsh and recommend anything at all that could improve my game, because there are a couple tournaments coming up that I’d like to be more ready for.
Darn it. The videos were taken down pretty quick. So much for me studying these matchups, especially since I’ve met a formidable Ryu for the first time ever in the arcades just yesterday.
You’re much better than me man! So I expect one of the better, more established mak’s will have better advice for ya. But hey, you wanted critiques, so I’ll see what I can do.
I’ll look into things more in-depth when I get the time, but a few things I noticed after watching through em once:
-Too many resets man! That claw especially wasn’t falling for them, so many ex crimson kick things! I think I saw you do fukiage x2 once or twice and I noticed an instance where you did it, then didn’t do the ex tsurugi after, even though it woulda killed.
-Jump forward mp covers most of vega’s wall dives safely, you can u2 them as well when you land. I believe that was in vryu’s punish video. There’s also fukiage for that, which I saw you try a few times (first one got crossed up and ended up being an oroshi if I saw that right). That’s risky as hell though.
-Use that s. HK more man! It’ll shut down claw’s rolls! You did s. mp in a few spots, which is probably safer, but hey…the THIS IS SPARTA has got dat stun!
It was pretty clear that you didn’t know the vega match-up, which is understandable…there aren’t that many out there! Great mix ups though man, a little too risky for my tastes, but I respect the hell outta ya for going for it! Keep representing Mak in those tournaments mang
First of all, you have a really good Mak especially with you being able to whip out kara-karakusa easily. Which brings me to my first critique, your reliance on Karakusa, it worked fine for you in your matches leading up to the final but the Vega player was able to escape and punish simply by jumping back a lot of the time and that hurt you a lot simply because it lead to a knockdown via Vega’s cr.hk. If your opponent is avoiding your karakusa just don’t use it especially against Vega who can be pressured for days by Makoto’s normals.
For Vega’s wall dives I saw you constantly go for a lp fukiage which only worked once, another way to punish that stuff is by using jf.mp which is good for knocking him out of the air and if he avoids the attack you can dash forward once you land to catch the huge recovery Vega has upon landing. Also after a fukiage (I’m also very guilty of this) you seemed to go for the j.hp resets a lot when you could have maximised damage (fukiage fukiage EX Tsurugi) or positioning (move them to the corner by fukiage tsurugi ex hayate). You could also increase damage/stun output by practising and using FFS (or FFSS where applicable) after a karakusa or to punish.
Other than that, keep up the good work dude and let’s level up ^^
[EDIT] buahahaa Paired beat me to it but yeah, SPARTA KICK is awesome in the Vega matchup [/EDIT]
Hell yeah Vitriol, I’m quick on the draw! Watching the Mak forums like a hawk, leveling up mah game!
Oh man though, how surprising…Vitriol and I must have the same teachers here on the forums! One might even call them…our senseis!? Damn I’m cheesy…anyways…I had a “you know you play too much street fighter when…” moment yesterday. I had a dream I was at an arcade and was playing Latif and Vryu…is that weird!? 0_o
Good shit, dude. Really solid ground game, great execution. Vs. vega is kind of weird when you’re on the offensive; even when you’re at frame advantage, if you push yourself too far away with blocked attacks, it can be tough to deal with his cr.lp. IAT is a little too slow to hit it and dash gimmicks are obviously out. I’ve had good results in that matchup by establishing frame advantage and putting him just outside the range for my cr.lk/st.mp, then just throwing out, say, s.mp OS EX hayate, or st.rh if he’s close to stun. Basically, just try keeping your offense on the ground a bit more; Mak’s beefy hitboxes can contend with Vega’s pokes pretty easy when you’re at advantage.
RH Tsurugi is also a pretty decent footsie tool in this one. It crushes slide and cr.mp, and usually trades (in Mak’s favor, natch) with Cosmic Heel. Loses to his st.rh typically, which isn’t too hard to whiff punish with sweep or cr.mp if you see it coming.
Other than that, maybe put some time into FFS? Once you get it down, it’s definitely worth the meter and damage midscreen.
HK Tsurugi is the only saving grace in that match-up in footsies. Ugh, I hate the triple dash into booms, happens to me all the damn time if I’m trying to rush.
Nasty match with Magoto vs Ryu :o. This guy is pretty good. SSF4%20AE%202012%20Streatz%5BRyu%5D%20vs%20Jaybird%5BMagoto%5D [media=youtube]vdq30Ib_lp4[/media] via @youtube
I wondered why U1, and why no XU Tsurugis though… Especially in the corner. No cMK Anti air cause guile was jumping all the time. Also only 1 rush round and when he did guile got demolished. I’m sure he sees somethings about the MU that we don’t know though… that I do not though…
All I’m saying is look at the difference between this match from AE and the one before. Is the MU or guile player that different?
Nope you still have some setups, especially for characters like guile, Abel, duds, Sag, etc. and like in the vid I linked, he didn’t really do setups. Just did the timing the Japanese way… By eying it lol. I know the setups from EX Oroshi work
Also re:U2, it’s not really there to use. More so it’s there to discourage projectiles making it easier to get in. 3 our of four times I don’t use it as anti projectile in the traditional sense. But putting the fear of Makoto in them and making then wary of U2 can distract the. For a 21 frame dash EX Kara lol. Or whatever.
Can’t speak of the match up differences, but the Guile player seemed to have a different game plan compared to the old match. He used more sonic boom zoning, and in the old matches he seemed to wake up down/back more (too much respect?) and VRyu capitalized on it.
matches from YogaFlame and FinestFighters were taken during the same week (and it was AE, not 2012)
edit:
goddamnit ok. Now, anytime someone ask me for a FT5, i will always play 1927368716% of my capacities because I should know it would finish on youtube if I lose. That’s make me crazy
I wonder where is the 5-0 I did on him on earlier session.
I’d LOVE to see how he handles those match-ups, in terms of spacing/normals/risks. From the sounds of it, he plays those two matches aggressively, which is probably how the match should be played. I play them defensively and get blown up too often, especially against Cammy. Sooner or later I eat a hard-to-AA dive kick or well spaced SA and it’s over.
So much for me studying these matchups, especially since I’ve met a formidable Ryu for the first time ever in the arcades just yesterday.
but yeah, SPARTA KICK is awesome in the Vega matchup [/EDIT]