Maybe I’m weird but I like the Karen match up. Unlike Chun and Ken, she has no ability to control space outside of her sweep range, and her sweep is punishable if you’re just inside of it. She’s tough because she punishes mistakes so well, but I think it’s a fun and fair match-up, a solid 5-5.
For aggressive Karens you have to learn how to use fireballs, especially EX fireballs, safely so that you can bait her to jump or attack you unsafely, then you punish and go into 50/50’s, which she has no great answer for, assuming you can bait an EX DP every once in a while.
For defensive Karens, I’m not sure what that means exactly @Tiers4Fears but in my mind that means she’ll let you fireball and back her down into the corner. Once you have corner pressure you should be able to out damage her into death. If she’s saving her EX for DPs, I would look for a read on when she likes to burn it. In my experience the DPs tend to either come out right away early in the round or set, or when the person thinks they’re going to die, like around one third/one quarter life. If they come out right away, I immediately go into safe pressure to bait it out again, making sure I stay close enough that I can keep my turn if she doesn’t DP. If she likes to save it, I wait until she’s around a third or less life and I’m about to mix her up, then I go into bait mode. I’ll bait 2 or 3 times in a row and it will basically always come out. I don’t think anyone alive will save an EX DP for a 4th bait, if they haven’t DP’s by then you can just command throw.
What you’ll find if you’re moving to a baiting approach, is you really need to work on your footsie game so that you can maintain close spacing and still pressure her. Baiting doesn’t do any good if it doesn’t work and you give up your turn, after all.
To give one example, one of my favorite ways to bait and keep pressure is to use my V-Reversal. If I go for a bait and she doesn’t bite, I make sure I’m standing outside of throw range and I wait for her to press a button, then I immediately V-Reversal and go back on offense. If I have a read on her back-rising I’ll dash forward and EX command throw, or go into some other pressure. You get to bait, AND get your turn back, AND get that white life.