People Involved: Philcito, RealDecoy, Fromo (he wasn’t aware of this though).
I tried this with RealDecoy for around 20 to 24 rounds jumping short (defensive and offensive) with these scenarios:
Jumping back, jumping forward with ken short kick vs Rainbow Roll, Horizontal Ball, Vertical Ball, with their respective 3 speeds (short, forward, roundhouse)
The results: Ken wins vs all versions of blanka balls, doesn’t matter what the 100% of the time, jumping short (defensive and offensive) even trades and sometimes wins versus late balls this turns this move in a dangerous tool vs blanka.
Real Decoy did this:
Opened a round with Horizontal, Vertical and Rainbow Roll, I just jumping back short and Blanka lost every attempt.
He cornered me and he tried to punish me with his horizontal and vertical balls also with rainbow rolls, ken won 100% of the time.
He tried to punish me with fullscreen blanka super (without the vertical ball O.S) vs jumping short and ken won or traded vs blanka super, blanka only was able to punish me when I messed up with my timing, even though is dangerous to blanka to do this.
Also Decoy tried to punish me with blanka super from short distance and ken landed behind blanka, blanka was opened and I punished him with a throw.
Decoy supered me with vertical ball O.S when I was in the corner, I just reacted to his super with a jumping forward short and ken was able to cancel the vertical ball and he wasn’t damaged by the super.
100% of the time jumping short was good enough to leave blanka opened and I was able to pressure blanka with fireballs or I just went for a throw or a dp for chip damage.
Other uses:
Jumping short x super (shoryureppa), blanka doesn’t have the right to react, ken just win.
Offensive game: you jump in front of blanka with a short kick with a late jump and blanka has to block or reverse with a ball, in the worst case ken trades or block (we didn’t try this that often though).
Stay in the corner jump with short, you can mix it up with jumping roundhouse, fireballs and wait… Ken is in advantage you don’t have to worry about the corner, Ken is in ADVANTAGE.
Tips:
- don’t press short kick late, press short as soon you jump, with this blanka won’t be able to land behind you and bite you or sweep you or punish you with a super or a crossup or anything, ken is safe.
- You can “random” jab dps on reaction after you land, if blanka decides to wait a little, you’ll punish blanka with a dp.
- Use crouching strong in mid-range to beat blanka ball, rolls and sweeps. Jump back with short to the corner and repeat or switch to jumping roundhouse in the corner.
And we tried this in actual fights the results for around 4 to 5 matches I can’t remember.
Results:
3-1 or 4-1 in ken favor. I have to say that I felt in control in every round, every single round and I only lost trying to play offensive.
I tried this with MAME offline , FBA offline and online with GGPO, the results are the same.
I had a set with Fromo last night my results:
Don’t play offensive or don’t try to zone blanka that much, just stay in the corner and use jumping short, avoid the pattern and I was able to win 2 or 3 matches in row, then I switched to offensive ken and I raped by fromo’s blanka. Fromo wasn’t aware that I was testing this with different styles (rushing down and turtling).
Using defensive short is useful to eliminate and eradicate blanka’s crossups, mix-ups and ambiguous crossups, blanka will never beat that move and ken is always safe, ALWAYS.
In theory Ryu is able to do the same but his slower jab dps aren’t that useful to use them as an aternate offense/defense in case blanka lands behind you.
In my humble opinion this change ken vs blanka matchup in ken’s favor like 6-4 or 6.5 to 3.5 Now RealDecoy has to approve this.
Notes:
- More testings’ in the short future with Decoy wait for videos, stay tuned.
- I’m not saying that I’m better than Decoy or Fromo, NO NO NO I just posted the results.
- IMO this move is broken vs Blanka.
- I haven’t tested this with Old Ken.