Noob is defiantly good at zoning, I’m still of the mindset that no one can out zone noob, his fireballs are large and quick, he has a low fireball and most importantly he has a decent teleport that can shutdown other peoples zoning attempts.
However! I believe noob really excels at his ability to control space and dictate the pace of the match. I truly think he’s the dhalsim of the game, but not SF4 Dhalsim, super turbo Dhalsim.
One of your main focus’s is figuring out when you can sneak in shadow clones (in matchups like raiden you just simply cant throw clones since he can teleport EASILY on reaction, but in matchups like against subzero you can throw shadows all day) But more than that you are trying to work people into the corner and to build meter whenever possible. (I think in one of my last tournament matches i used breaker three time in a round) you can easily take the game from being slow paced zoning to a good, safe, pressure game.
Noobs pressure game.
Unfortunately noob doesn’t have the greatest block string pressure midscreen. But taking advice from Tom Brady I’ve implemented a pretty good system of getting in close and making my opponent guess.
-Everything revolves around Noobs crouching 3, from it (on it or block) you can
throw (which will beat block and put them closer to the corner)
upkick (which will beat throw tech, jumps and counter pokes, reset the situation and is safe)
back up a bit and do the 1+2+1+4 string (which beats throw tech, jumps, and counter pokes)
cr.3 again to get a better judge of how they are going to react
This take alot of dashing forward and quick thinking (I’m still getting used to doing it but I’ve seen it be VERY effective) in general cr.3 into throw works allot but I haven’t mastered dashing up and getting the pressure going again because they are a bit to far away to make this effective, so you need to inch your way back in after a throw (but it does let you play the throw wake up game pressure and either keep zoning or allows you to close some distance)
-After a throw or teleport
check them with a shadow on wakeup (this works on almost everyone and forces them to block)
dash up and get a jump in (this works pretty well but beware of people with good wake up)
dash up and try to get into cr.3 distance
-In a corner*
This is where Noob becomes awesome ANY button leads to a corner combo that resets into ghostball.
b+1,2,1,4 xx upshadow, 1,2 (or 2,1) xx ghostball
f+4,3 xx upshadow, 1,2 (or 2,1) xx ghostball
b+2,1,4 xx upshadow, 1,2 (or 2,1) xx ghostball
neutral jump punch, 1,2 (or 2,1) xx upkick 1,2 (or 2,1) xx ghostball
(My favorite) f+3,3 xx upkick, cr 1 xx upkick, 1,2 (or 2,1) xx ghostball
(second favorite) upkick, cr 1 xx upkick, 1,2 (or 2,1) xx ghostball
*All of these combos can be extended by canceling into upkicks instead of ghostball, or using ex upkicks depends on how much damage you need to do.