Hey guys! I recently started playing this again on PC and am working my way up the ranks. I have good and bad games, but one of the things that I run into a lot online is the constantly-turtling shoto player. I feel like they just have so many good options for turtling, and have a really hard time getting in on them. How do you guys do it, or what’s generally the best way to handle a turtling shoto player? I don’t even mean the ones that throw fireballs, just the guys that sit there and hold down/back and wait for your approach for the entire match.
Also, as a Blanka players do you encounter hardcore turtles online often, or is it just a general thing?
First off, there are matchup threads - check those.
In terms of battling shotos, like any opponent, spacing is key, especially with Blanka. Tend to stay outside of cr. mk range for Ryu and toward mk for ken. Optimal range is where you can slide a fireball on reaction and stuff any jumpins. Also, unless the opponent is no good or there is crazy lag, ball into throw will not work. Still amazes me how often I see this for impatient Blankas who want to get in. Don’t jump around like a noob and be cognizant that you don’t have to attack.
That is the single biggest thing, even more so as a Blanka player. If someone wants to turtle you, if you have the life lead, there is no need to attack. It’s not the most fun process, but timeouts are your friend. If you are looking for some agro character, Blanka isn’t for you - pick a divekick character. Not all matches are glamorous combo videos. At high level play, it is a war of attrition - you need to be patient and wait for the opponent to make a mistake so you can setup your mixups.
This is what I usually do against a turtling shoto.
I usually test their reactions, and if you mix it up well you should be able to corner them.
Test their reaction against LP/MP ball
a. do they interupt you? if so with what moves?
This matters because if they have a tendency to interupt your MP ball with c.LP/c.MP it’ll mean that you can actually go for EX Ball once in awhile and win or trade (still win), or even HP ball if they get too obvious. If they tend to DP you as an interupt it’ll mean you can probably do LP ball and stop short before their DP, since MP ball and LP ball looks similar in speed its easy to confuse your opponent.
b. how do they try to punish you on block and can they punish you.
If they can punish you stop doing it, if they can’t abuse it.
c. after a few blocks they’ll realize your chip damage is adding up and your meter is building as well.
Test them with tip range(safe) slide
in general it’s easier for characters to punish your ball standing, so this is why this is useful, if they are standing then they can’t block low, and since it’s safe at tip range you should know this range super well.
Provoke them by walking forward
At a certain point they will NEED to hit a button and remember when they do that because that’s the range you wanna play footsies with them, keep in mind Blanka got an ok kara throw, this is probably one of your best tools
Footsies
if they like to use low forward a lot, s.HP is one of the answers to beat that, your sweep is also a decent footsie tool. Also don’t forget to s.LP/s.MP to provoke them and on block both of them gives you frame advantage to make s.LP a frame trap, it might not be much but it’ll keep the pressure.
Finally there’s hop/dash if you do all the above and they really don’t do anything but hold downback, that means you can probably get in with hop or dash or normal cancel into hop at some point. From there mix it up with either c.lk xx electricity or throw.
Sorry for responding so late. I’d gotten really caught up with school stuff and haven’t been able to play much until just recently. Thanks for the insightful responses! Really good advice and I have started to play more patiently and use more footsies in my game (ie: take advantage of more normals than I was using previously). Makes a big difference. I’m getting a lot of mileage out of s.HP, cr.HP and s.HK lately, to the point where it appears to really stump some opponents…and I’m starting to choose more opportune times to go in instead of just going ham a lot and over-using hop. Good turtling shoto players can still be tough sometimes but they aren’t so terribly frustrating to fight anymore.
Mostly what appears to hang me lately is my rusty execution, but I’ll be working on that too.