R.Mika Matchup: 'cus pro wrestling is... the very BEST!

Here is some swag tech for those Ken players

If Ken does EX DP you can punish after first DP on reaction.

>Block First DP of EX< > crLK > stMP > stHP > Super or stMPO > stHP > VT into whatever you want

If Ken does his EX Tatsu in the Air, EX Wingless Airplane beats it clean on early/late reaction
If Ken does his EX Tatsu in the Air, Wingless Airplane can punish it at the end of Ken blabbing his gibberish in the Air (So after a few frames) I wouldn’t recommend this until you practice it
crMP also beats Ex Tatsu in Air

Gimmick
stlk > stmp > LK Wingless Airplane (Goes Over)
Beats Quickrise DPs incluiding EX DP
If they EX Tatsu you can Dash in for Ex Wingless Airplane
if they DP you can stHK or crHP into VT

Pretty sure everyone knows about using crHP to go under Ken’s Target combo

Footsies

If Ken is sticking crmk out
stmk beats it on reaction
stHK beats it on reaction

If Ken is sticking out stHP
stHK can punish it
If you block stHP close you can Raw Super (I believe)

This has been me over the past couple of days. No matter what skill level the Karin is if they just get in my face and spam buttons I can’t do anything. I haven’t found a single move that can contest crouched meaty mp on wakeup. EX Peach gets stuffed, jumped gets stuffed, block puts you exactly where Karin wants. I know Mika has other tough matchups but this is the one that’s frustrating me a lot.

From the time I spent with Karin during the betas, she had terrible anti-air options. Test out your opponent’s aa skills and exploit if they have trouble countering you.
Her specials are also pretty slow and gives a window to react to. You will probably need to up your Karin expertise by setting the aa to do her specials and take some time to react to them.

When you do score a knockdown against Karin, remember that point-blank neutral jump causes her EX DP to completely whiff.

That’s good to know, but a smart player will wait this out and DP you on the way down if you abuse it too much! Good for a few times in a set though, enough that they try it again thinking first time was a fluke.

I don’t think Mika can beat any meaty on wake up… That’s the point though, only invincible moves will beat a meaty on wake up, so a lot of the times in sf5 you just block the mixup and counter attack. Karin does not have better normals than mika, so you block 1-2 attacks and take your turn back.

1 thing about Karin is pressure - the only thing she can do to beat your meaty on wake up is her ex dp, so if you keep the pressure high and bait that one, you can punish it and she’ll be toast.

My strategy is just to block bison, let him hang himself. After all if he comes towards mika he’s just a mp away from getting slammed into the wall. It’s not that big a problem getting pushed to the corner so I just block. What’s he gonna do, dash towards us and throw? I know that’s not the easiest thing to react to but when that’s his only thing it makes it easy to smack him out of.

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What I do for forward dash and grabs are throw out random s. mp so if he tries to fd and throw, he’ll eventually get hit so you can rush him down.

Other than that, yeah. You’ll just have to wait for him to hang himself. I’d study up on him though. I’ve seen some tricky stuff with him.

[quote=“Slizzard, post:23, topic:179184”]

My strategy is just to block bison, let him hang himself. After all if he comes towards mika he’s just a mp away from getting slammed into the wall. It’s not that big a problem getting pushed to the corner so I just block. What’s he gonna do, dash towards us and throw? I know that’s not the easiest thing to react to but when that’s his only thing it makes it easy to smack him out of.

Bit late to the party, but I’ve been having a lot of success with cr. LK after blocking. If she does the slide follow up you get a free CH and can link into st. mp -> passion press. If she does the grab followup you won’t have to worry about her catching you because she’ll just fly right over and you recover in time to get a full punish. If she doesn’t do anything you’ll get a simple FP combo or you can set up a tick throw/frametrap.

You have to be creative with punishing Rashid. I haven’t tested 100%, but i’m pretty sure a lot of his attacks are negative. Like the dive kick you can’t wingless (it seems, It always traded for me), but on block you can dash forward and throw etc, it’s like -20. If he mashes the tornados its punishable for sure, but i think it’s like Dudley’s ex.mgb in SF4 in that “when” you can punish isn’t well telegraphed.

Also about Karin: Abuse Mika’s v-reversal. Wait for the heavy attacks, then v-reversal ASAP, if the recovery is enough (or they cancel into another attack), you’ll land a semi-positive knockdown with grey health and you’ll reduce your stun to zero. Also it’s safe on block, generally to punish v-reversal you have to do light attacks (on block) or not press anything which means Mika get’s to throw or counter-poke with st.mp.

Vega: Vega’s difficult, you can’t v-skill when he has v-trigger (if anyone was wondering). BUT you can counter-poke his st.hp with Mika’s st.mp, you can literally throw it out at max range and buffer hp/ex.sp Slide doesn’t quite go under it, but it helps. Vega’s medium normals are really good, you can’t kill pressure with v-reversal after cr.mp, you just have to block it. Vega can also punish whiffed drop kick very easy with cr.hk, so be aware. Also be better about punishing cr.hk (slide), it looks positive, but it’s really not afaik at best unless it’s meaty, it’s -4.

Zangief: This is not SF4, again this is NOT SF4. So…frame trap him as much as possible, his throws are just as fast as yours and are not invincible to strikes. make sure you pepper in lows to beat lariat. his st.hp can be beat with passion press into rope throw as a counter-poke. ex.wa does good against his air spd. If Gief pressures you with meaty heavys (i.e. the headbutt), v-reversal, backdash, then v-skill. DON’T DON’T DON’T DON’T DON’T dropkick gief. I’d almost suggest doing it once early in the match, then just doing regular st.hk to bait out an ex running bear grab or a flex to give you neutral advantage. Gief can flex dropkick and spd on reaction, it’s too easy, don’t do it. Although i think the match is in Gief’s favor because he can take away some of Mika’s tools, he has to work for it just like you, even though he has health, meaty throws are a big risk for him if you avoid it. Abuse meaties on his wakeup, and don’t be afraid to frame-trap. meaty f+hp, st.hp can frame-trap jabs. I tried to counter-poke it and it’s not worth the effort. Be wary of st.hk which whiffs on crouchers, you see st.hk up close, buffer a throw towards the corner. st.mk is a good tool in this match. Also don’t let gief dash forward, mash st.lp/st.mp to create space in the neutral

I play a bit of Karin, and my approach to taking her on with Mika is to treat her like she’s honest. All of her gimmicks are garbage; learn to punish any of her “tricks” and it’ll turn into a standard footsie game real quick. She’s really good at footsies, but it’s not because of the quality of her normals, it’s her walk speed and JFT (just-frame tenko (launcher)). She really only uses c.mk and c.mp to open; s.mk is her punishment for small openings during your fishing phases, but can’t be converted into anything more. Her overhead can’t link; raw JFT is -10 on block; blocked orochi (shoulder) is +2 on block. The shoulder can’t be canceled into from c.mk for a combo (except on counter-hit) and that’s her only cancelable fishing poke - which leaves canceling into JFT, ressenha, or sappo (dash). c.mp is great at point blank which is why it’s the go to after a cross-up - like SF4 Gen, her mp’s are fantastic on hit or block, so you need to look for mid-strength (or heavy) answers to these challenges. Her s.mp is very similar to Mika’s s.mp, easy to link with disappointing push-back.

Mujikyaku (chicken legs) is -5 on block for lk. The mk version tacks an overhead strike onto the end and is -6 on block. hk removes the overhead and adds two spinning kicks which on contact result in knock-down: -15 on block. A Karin player using any of these as block-string enders can be reminded very sternly about these numbers with your very best style-heavy punish of choice.

It feels like Mika’s footsie tools have a better hit or hurt box when compared to Karin - I score a lot more raw poke damage with Mika than I do with Karin. Where Karin shines is when she actually gets an opening (usually a forced error) she can hit really hard on no meter. Once the Karin players get comfortable with v-skill pressure, she can build VT really quickly - that opens up her high-speed offensive options. She will use her VT like most other pressure characters: convert a whiff punish (or a CC) into rekkas > super. The rekkas are really just a reflection of her neutral tools, but with link options for more conversion. A Karin who activates VT outside of a combo is either desperate or looking to score cheap damage off her rekkas > overhead or the rekkas which cross-behind. That shit is real weak once you can read it, so just stay calm and find the timing (or use the lab, obviously).

To me, Karin and Mika are quite similar: they both have reasonable AA options, good pokes, good walk-speed, and can convert well once the opponent gets flustered or grabs for some tasty bait. Karin just doesn’t care as much as Mika about positioning.

You can interrupt and punish Karin’s kick special mid string. Block first two, then throw as she turns to do roundhouse

It’s way better to wait for the full EX DP and then punish with a crush counter dropkick IMO

But would that be as swag? No it would not.

Hense I said swag, my punish is for psychologically breaking down the player. If they see you do the combo they’ll never exDP again without confirming.

In the Mika vs Mika matchup, don’t scoot around and be wary of Mika doing delay s. rh on you, because you can easily block it and then STUNNER STUNNER!!! =P V reversal guaranteed after blocking that, don’t worry about the mixup.

Laura’s neutral jump is so difficult to deal with. In fact all neutral jumps are frustrating.

Hi there. Long time lurker long time noob. Here’s what I got to contribute:

Vs. Everyone:

  1. Mika has a guaranteed punish for any blocked cr.HK: Rope Throw if it is within range, and EX Shooting Peach at long range (even vs Chun).
  2. Anyone without invincible wakeups is at the mercy of the meaty F+s.HP. Don’t forget to follow up with s.LP on block.
  3. Phase 1: dash --> s.LP. Phase 3: begin inside pressure.

Vs. Dragon Punches (all of them):

  1. She gets a free crush counter combo from F+s.HP if she blocks Ryu/Cammy/Necali/etc’s DPs.
  2. Peach’s armor on her EX Peach tanks all Dp’s that don’t hit multiple times.
  3. A well spaced, cross up j.LK makes you completely safe from the angle of the DP and gives you a free punish.

Vs. Bison:

  1. EX Typhoon can punish Scissor kicks, but only if Bison lands in range (~50%).
  2. You can duck under head stomp with Mika’s cr.MP/st.HP. Do it on his way down and you’ll wind up perfectly behind him.

Vs. Ryu:

  1. Fireball is punishable with rope throw (close range) and ex peach (long range).
  2. You can punish the links of st.MP–>st.MP/cr.MP/etc. and F+HP–>st.MP/cr.LK/etc. with a st.LP–>peach. For example: if Ryu F+HP–>st.MP–>cr.MK–>Fireball, Mika can punish the first and second links with st./cr.LP–>peach or punish the fireball with ex peach (or rope throw if his blockstring kept him close enough ie youre in the corner).

Anybody know how to deal with Laura? Once she gets in seems to be over quickly…

Nash is HARD to beat!