I only went to one local mini-tournament so far and lost pretty early on but I’d say just give it a try. It’s pretty cool to be a part of it.
As for Laura, she’s a 50:50 character, so people will lose on time to her and win one time. That might be annoying from time to time but I think the hate has shifted to characters like Balrog who has an easier and safer chance of making comebacks whenever he activates V-Trigger. Plus he’s harder to control in neutral than Laura.
I am thinking of picking up Laura as a secondary.
could u guys give me a quick guide on how to Laura?
If you use it well, this might be good enough to get you to gold or platinum, serves me well in gold:
AA with st.mp or QCF hp
Aim to landing an LP bolt. After that, do cr.lk,cr.lp confirm into another bolt. Keep doing this till they learn to block, then mix in command grabs here and there.
Ex shoulder to go through fireballs and long range moves is good. It is however also an excellent wake up reversal style move after doing a backrise when you know your opponent is going to apply loose pressure.
Dash up command grab is your friend.
After a command grab do lp bolt. If the opponent stayed on the ground then immediately do an lp fireball after whiffing lp bolt and the fireball will hit meaty.
If you know the opponent will quick rise and block, then after the command grab do ex command grab.
Wait till you get into v trigger to get command grab crazy since they do more damage in v trigger.
Cr.lk,cr.lp, st.mk xx Vskill back (VSB) xx h fireball is a decent pressure string. Mix it up by holding the fireball for a few frames which pushes your hurt box back and makes opponent normals wiff. And instead of doing fireball after the VSB you can do nothing and look for an AA or do st.hk looking for a CC.
Do hp fireballs at neutral and mixup between charging them or not and walking behind them to gain space on your opponent. This is especially effective once Laura has v trigger since she charges to level 2 and 3 much faster.
Laura is all about v trigger. It makes her moves stronger and have more stun. A simple v trigger sequence of something like st.mk xx v trigger xx normal xx ex fireball juggle with normal>opponent lands into a command grab>opponent quick rises into ex command grab can easily do plus 600 damage and end a round.
A simple v trigger hk command grab into opponent quick rises into ex command grab does 410 damage in v trigger.
I’d like to add, stay on your opponent. Most people are scared of her, and will do anything in their power to keep her away in the neutral, as Laura’s die there. This is particularly prevalent with folks that have a fireball, they will back dash and throw fireballs, and you’ll be in fireball hell trying to figure out which will be an EX, because those stop her EX Bolty line if they hit twice. Ryu’s in particular are fond of running from her, only to go in if they are sure they be putting tons of pressure on you.
If you manage to stay on them, and vary mixups to the point they don’t know if you are going to command grab, go high, go low, or overhead, you will have a better time winning the match.
FYI: this does not work on Zangief (and Birdie to a lesser extent.). His buttons beat yours, and his SPD reach is questionable at times. Good luck with him.
Hey guys…
I know Balrog is one of Lauras best MU but I lose heaps and I know why… it’s just the neutral… I def lose in neutral because idk where to stand.
How do you deal with Balrog in neutral? Anyone got videos so I can watch? Any help is appreciated.
Stay outside his sweep range, throw fireballs and let him kill himself.
As a former (bad) Laura player who switched to Rog (although I may return one day): fireball. Her fireball wrecks him in neutral because he’s a charge character and it causes proximity guard. Also her fb is too slow for him to vskill through. Mixing fb up with cross up jump ins is a living hell for Rog.
Yeah Gief is pretty much a lost cause and almost an auto-win for him. You may get about 1 or 2 turns a round to do something so you hopefully can make it count.
Balrog you just mix up your fireballs and use your AAs. No neutral really needed unless he worked his way in too close.
So, after not playing ranked for like 6 months (tired of the rage quits) I ranked up to platinum in March. The good: I get matched with stronger players more often. The bad: the hate mail is even worse. I thought once I was away from the silver and gold scrubs people would be a little smarter. Just tonight I got three messages such as, “Your char is OP” and “Cheap 50/50s” etc from…wait for it… a Cammy player, a Boxer player, and a Urien player. Unbelievable. I mean if I got a message like that from a Nash main I would at least feel a tiny amount of sympathy.
man good thing I didn’t figure out how to communicate with other player or I would be doing this all day. I know I lose because I am bad, but getting mad at the other player just feels better… especially when they play Guile
yday I went to a mates house and he rq and yeah pretty much the same thing.
Just a bunch of people who don’t bother to learn the MU. 
I mean all you have to do is outpoke her and anti air her and you win… and challenge after st.mk of course.
@DrGulag oh so you are here too (you kicked me out of the tournament xD). Congratulations man on your performance at UFA 
Hi @nozarex , thanks and hopefully you were able to play some good sets also. I remember our set in the tournament, three good Laura players in one pool. Me, you and will2pac. >_>. It really is hard to do well with Laura in a tournament setting, because she requires quick adaptation among other things.
@DrGulag @nozarex where are you from exactly if I may? I mean if you can casually go to UFA I guess you might not be too far from me lol.
I’m from Finland Helsinki and I think nozarex is from Austria : ] I’ll be at Dreamhack and probably also at Moscow Fighting Arena. Hopefully you guys can come also!
lol dang, you made quite a trip to come here. If I knew it and if I remembered about UFA earlier we could’ve shared a couple beers together 
Yeah i’m from Austria. I’ll be at VSFighting and EGX this your. I can absolutly recomend EGX it’s a great tournament with a lot of other stuff to do and see cuz it’s a quite big game convention.
Laura’s story mode outfit, Color 14, pretty cool homage to Blanka.
If you’re on PS4 I’d recommend changing your message settings to ‘friends only’. You might miss out on the occasional GG but I’m so glad I did this a while back. PSN is really a Zen-place now.
And if someone really wants to hit you up for a rematch or wants to spar a bit he can always still send a friend request and then communicate normally with you.
Great idea! Wonder why I didn’t think of that!