SF4 Ryu Match-up Thread

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Various pages:
Other matchup page can be found HERE
Ask AKS216 can be found HERE
Matchup Videos can be found HERE

Well I have decided to consolidate all of the info on all of the Ryu matchups into one tight space…so here it goes:

Abel

ok, I found out some ways to fight Abel.
some tips:

Use c.mk hadou/ EX hadou and lure him to jump and punish with SRK linking ultra/super.
DOn’t let him near you if he does get near you SRK and punish his his pokes.
If he does teh combo string rekka block teh first one and punish with SRK.
dont stay too close to him because his throw hurst, His combo with ultra could take somewhere 60% of your hp or more… when he has ultra, don’t let him link it.
Break his defence with crossups and throw.

you can jump in more ofter as his anti is not great but do watch for his jump mid kick, its got high priority.

have fun fighting!!!

I just saw this vid ? [media=youtube]-55YxHBnsoM[/media] skip to the 2:28 mark, you can see ryu reversled srk the second hit of the rekka and trade. I gotta try this more.

Just a quick note about Abel:

If he has his ultra and you’re at half screen, do NOT hadouken if he’s standing. Tried it once and got annihilated by the ultra. Its super fast start up and has more range than I thought it did.

This was probably known a while ago, but I played my first Abel yesterday and it was news to me.

I can help with Abel. Fought like 12 matches (3 out of 5) against a guy who was maining Abel.

Abel has 2 tricks to his rekka. One is a 3 hit high combo (I think it’s impossible to interrupt the second hit, I have not done it but the third hit is interruptible if blocked), the other is a low one (but it is not a combo). It’s weird but the 3rd hit is sorta like a throw (in other words, it goes through a FA). The trick is to guess if it’s coming high or low. If it’s high you block high and punish after the third hit (although it’s hard to punish unless you’re in a corner and he’s deep in), if it’s low though you can block and punish after the 1st hit but if you keep blocking, you will(?) get flipped.
Sorry, for being ambiguous as it wasn’t quite clear to me if the difference is 1 is block high vs. block low or if 1 is blockable but is relatively safe tick damage and 1 is unblockable but counterable in between the 2 hits.

The thing is, it’s a 50/50 payoff, do you guess right and counter correctly? In any case despite doing lots of damaging combos on me, his Abel only won 2 out of 12 matches (once again a player only using super, specials and cross-ups with no attempt at just playing with regular moves) . Just try and learn his zone and realize it’s a little less than 1/2 screen away (between 1/3 and 1/2). He tried several times to do a roll > command grab but it just didn’t pay off when the ratio of flips was 3 for me for every 1 he was able to do. In any case, just keep away from his zone (which is incidentally exactly where Ryu is weakest, so you would not want to be in that zone anyways).

Also, Abels anti-air game pretty much persists only of his ground air throw type move (forgot what it’s called). It catches deep jump-ins (and incidentally any cross-ups) or if you try to jump and attack so be sure to mix it up, don’t always try and jump in and attack. It has a long enough recovery time so if you do a jump in just a step or two out of reach without attacking you can punish it with your weapon of choice (ultra or revenge if you have it, flip, srk, footsies if you don’t).

If he rolls in, throw should beat him.
You can dp out of his throw combo.
His groundgame is pretty good and a good player will rely on this, so you have to beat him here. Jump ins are about the worst you can do, it’s really hard to crossup Abel and his double elbow is killer AA.
Don’t use FA against any grabber.

my 2cents

I thought I’d try to contribute to this thread by trying to list the things other characters will try to do against Ryu, instead of just listing what do to against them. Knowing the match-up should include how they’ll try to get their damage. I’ll start with Abel as a test-post, and see how this pans out. I gleamed info from the other character threads to see how different mains view the match-up. Starting with Abel…
PS. Might include comments or names from the threads I gleamed this info from. Credit to whoever contributed their thoughts.

How Abel Will Try to Get His Damage

1. Try to reset after cr.hp xx lr roll xx cr.hp, leading to mixups.
   Cr. Fp - Lk Roll - Cr. Fp - Lk roll - FP TT. (400 damage)
   -works well on opponents who try to tech grab or block

Cr. Fp - Lk Roll - Cr. Lp - Lk roll (wind up in back of opponent) - Cr HP (270 damage + whatever you decide to do next) (credit to jwong for this one).
-works well on opponents who block wrong direction or try and escape by jumping.

Cr. Fp - Lk roll - Cr Fp - Roundhouse wheel kick (340)
-works well on opponents who down block or try and escape by jumping. Very deceptive looks like it’s going to whiff.

Cr. Fp - Lk Roll - forward kick - lk wheel kick (310)

• variation of last

c.fp - hk roll - st.lp - lk roll - c.fp (added by strider hyriu)

cr.fp xx lk roll f+mk xx dash crosses up midscreen if you time it right. (crosses up in abel mirror) (added by fulaani)

[media=youtube]uqHfsOLJvt4[/media]

The inputs might not be important, but if you’re doing training mode, it’ll help to see how this looks, and reduce the mental damage with familiarity in a real match.
2. Hover around at footsies range, then EX-Wheel Kick over fireballs, or Ultra through fireballs. Otherwise, he?ll try to hit you with wheel kick that?s safe on block when far enough.
3. EX- Tornado Throw you out of blockstrings or crossovers. EX-TT has 1-6 frames hit invincibility.
4. Roll forward into Tornado Throw, or roll throw fireballs into TT
5. Hit cr.FP as an Anti-air and juggle into Ultra
6. Aside from Mix-ups in the corner, there?s also pressuring with forward+Mk, roll cancel, then TT against turtling
7. Rolling on wake-up shenanigans to mix-up and cr.FP or TT against a block
8. When Abel gets in close anywhere on-screen, fr.MK xx dash xx TT for pressure. Tornado throws have throw invincibility but you can probably SRK them out of this on anticipation.
10. EX-Change of Direction through pokes or sweeps since it has Super Armor.
11. Cr.HK from footsies distance, then roll cancel on block into mixups.
12. Cross-up with MK, leading into a variety of options on hit or miss.
13. A good Abel knows you want him to jump into you for SRK. He probably won?t. Instead, he?ll probably approach with a solid footsies game, and hope for a fireball poke from you, which he can focus-absorb and dash in for close combat. Once he?s in, the pressure?s on.

From what the posters were saying, Abel’s game is centered around mix-ups and pressure up close, as you can see in Justin Wong’s raping of other men. Strong posters in the Abel thread seem to be HAV, Bustabust. Look for them in the Abel threads. Obviously there could be more posters/players to watch for but I didn’t look deep enough in Abel threads.

Let me know what you think. I’ll add more if this is helpful.

Akuma (Gouki)

Akuma can be tough if you’re facing a good player. Be careful with his 3 hitter fireball, jump over it but dont let him catch you with his SRK. You also don’t want to be too close to Akuma especially if you’re not going to attack. If you can get the knock down chances are he’s going to try to come back with a wakeup SRK, look for it if not throw him. Stick with the basic combos. Regarding Akuma’s Shun Goku Satsu, if Akuma has ultra or super either keep your distance or try not to let him catch you as you’re landing from a jump. Wait for the two jabs to come out and the start up. As soon as you see this jump either straight up, forward, or backwards. If you have ultra, jump straight up and as you land go straight for the ultra.

dealing with his fireballs and air fireballs is not too hard with Ryu. If you’re not at the edge of the map, you can move back to avoid his air fireballs (or trade with your own fireballs), and jumping his red fireball on reaction is not hard. You can play very patiently and use your EX during the fireball war - it’s very important you come out ahead, or else you are giving him the ability to play runaway the whole match. Once you get up close, you’re basically the same character, except he takes a lot more damage from pokes than you. If he tries to engage you, embrace it. I believe this is a very difficult match for Akuma.

i dont know if this has been posted, i didn’t read all 13 pages of posts.

Vs Akuma
as soon as you have meter, bait the jumping fireball from about 1/2 to 2/3’s screen, AS SOON as you see it Super/Ultra. Akuma will land on it, you may trade, but its worth it. You may have to play with the timing, but its a easy BIG damage vs Akuma.

As far as I know there is absolutely nothing you can do to stop Akuma from teleporting since it has no startup. All you can do if you want to keep the pressure on is throw a fireball in the hopes of getting a meaty hit as he comes out of it, or chase after him. The effectiveness of those two options will all depend on which way he goes etc, but the tail end of his teleport has 9 frames of recovery where he’s not invincible.

Otherwise you’re just going to have to work your way back in.

You can definately still get Akuma after knockdown, it’s just different. The way I punish him is slightly weird.

Basically, both FK Tatsu and ulta travel at the same speed as both of Akuma’s teleports. That means that, so long as you release a either Tatsu or Ultra within 9 frames of Akuma starting his teleport, it’ll hit (cause of his recovery). Problem then istrying to guess the right way. This is basically just a mind game. With Tatsu, if you guess the wrong way youll basically just end up kicking the air and resetting, neither at advantage or disadvantage, if you get it right you get damage plus knockdown…

With the ultra, just wait for split second when he gets up before throwing it (andd I dont suggest you even try this if your tming is not excellent). If you time it correctly, the ultra will always head the right direction (cause ofthe stupid, auto-change direction thing). So there a nice little ultra.

If you have EX, you can always just throw an EX FB. If you have 3 EX bars + ultra, FADC an EX hado into ultra. If you have super, just chuck it.

These arent particularly easy moves to pull off, but they are definately possible.

Just tried this again. If you time an FK Tatsu PERFECTLY, it’ll change direction and hit him wherever he goes and no matter what teleport he does, unless youre really unlucky and the 2 frame gaps in the Tatsu’s active screw everything up.

His three-hit fireball comes out really slowly. You can usually jump right over that without consequence unless he’s sitting on super or ultra and waiting for you to. Depending on the range, you can probably jump over and get a j.HK -> sweep in at the very least.
This advice I’m about to give you is not specific to Akuma: stop randomly jumping at people. If you think an air fireball is coming, it’s easy to just focus dash through it and start the pressure.
If Akuma is coming for a demon flip, go for the dragon punch.
If you predict a teleport coming, try to meet him up where he stops and punish. You won’t always guess right, but one time really is enough when you’re dealing with someone whose health is as low as Akuma’s.

I would say that if you’re dealing with a fireball spammer and you manage to get ahead in health, stop chasing him around. Waste as much time as you want while avoiding the fireballs and building meter.

Bulldog him.

Just walk forward and get right in his face…sure you may eat an air fireball or two, but he has a puny lifebar so you can afford to take a hit or two to get close.

Learn how to time fireballs so he lands on them after his air fireball.

Knock him down and expect the teleport, lob a fireball so it hits him when the teleport ends.

Remember he wants you at 3/4 to full screen distance, so NEVER be in that distance and he will start to make mistakes.

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Balrog (M. Bison/Mike Bison)

Be careful with your fireballs as his spin will go right through it and hit you. Wait for it, block and punish with SRK or go for a cr. mk + fireball/exfireball

Boxer vs Ryu: again, hard match-up because Boxer’s cr.jabs have insane priority and his pokes are longer than Ryu’s just enough to punish if you whiff. Boxer’s j.hk have a weird hit box to it too and sometimes trades/stuffs everything you throw out unless you throw out early cr.hp or shoryu. Ryu’s cr.mp can beat most of Boxer’s pokes.

Ryu Matchup Thread

ok hopefully i found something that will help us shotos out against the boxer. recently i got owned by a boxer in casuals cuz i had no answer for his ex dash punches. Don’t know if this is common knowledge already but it seems that you can simply throw him out of every one of them on reaction. this shit is crazy because not only do you have him where you want him. on the ground and not forcing you to eat all those jabs but the rog player just lost meter and will think twice about just throwing those ex moves out there. also you can ex dragon punch on reaction. i like to stick out a cr.mk as soon as i see him flash and then ex dragon so that the cr.mk eats the super armor and the dragon gives full damage. this also works with a regular dragon punch although its much much riskier.

the turn punch. the bane of our fireball happy ways. most rogs want to hit you with this early hoping that you will stop throwing fireballs. usually when they have this charged they’ll be walking towards you daring you to throw one. Personally i like to crouch first and then stick out a standing jab they turn punch you dragon on reaction using the old walking dragon technique. A lot of times this will work due to the fact you’re mind gaming the player by crouching first you imply that you did a qcf motion before standing the jab is quick enough to get out and recover with enough time for you to dragon punch them IF they do a turn punch. And if they don’t just walk forward and go for a throw or something a well spaced cr.mp is better IMO.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Well here’s a couple of tips noting on Balrog (boxer) from my experience as I am having a lot of trouble against him.

Tip 1: Try and keep in the middle use c.mk to control his dash punch.

Tip 2: Do not and I mean do not get in the corner against a good Balrog, once in the corner he can stay about 3 feet from you and turtle. If you jump he uppercuts, constant blocking will lead to him coming closer for a c.lp then a grab. what i say when you indeed get in a corner is time a shoryuken. Just avoid corners.

Tip 3: Once he is down on the floor you can there rush him make sure to use c.lp c.lp c.lk c.mk . He has a couple of ways of countering you but a smart Balrog will block if you can bait him to do a head uppercut and block dash c.mk hadouken.

Tip 4: this has been working for me when I’m in range to get countered by his spinning punch I throw a hadouken then follow with a shoryuken light if he has late timing on his punch 80% he will get hit.

Tip 5: after every low kick follow with a shoryuken if he tends to get aggressive if he starts blocking dash and grab mix it up.

I’ll get a link to a video were Ryu perfectly fights Balrog.

His wakeup options are really weak.

Headbutt is a crappy reversal, no bones about it. The normal version straight up loses to lots of low attacks (ie Dhalsim down and down-back+kicks, Zangief crouching short, Dan crouching short, and I’m sure every other character has something else as well). And when it doesn’t beat low attacks, it flies harmlessly right over them. And on top of that, it comes out really slowly. The fastest version, jab, takes 8 frames to come out, which means that if you have any normal that recovers in fewer than 8 frames (and everyone does, as far as I know), you can pressure him on his wakeup without him being able to do a headbutt fast enough to stop you. Now, jab loses to lots of things anyway, so if he really wants you off him, he’s gonna have to do ex headbutt, which takes a full 12 frames to come out, meaning that you have even more leeway to put out a meaty normal that will recover before he can hit you with a headbutt.

And it’s not like his other potential reversals are any better or faster. Super? Comes out in 9 frames. Ultra? Comes out in 10 frames. Both are extremely and easily punishable, and both are huge wastes of meter.

How about an ex rush punch? They absorb one hit, so can’t they absorb the first meaty attack and hit the next one? Well, these are kinda weird. The startup on the move is very long, but after you hit him once, the actual hitting part of the dash punch comes out pretty fast, like in as few as 7 frames. But again, 7 frames is pretty slow as reversals go, so lots of characters can meaty him around this and then block the actual hit of the ex dash punch. Others can meaty him and immediately cancel into a safe pressure move.

Don’t bother crossing Rog up, there’s just no reason to; if you cross him up, he gets a chance to escape with headbutt (which moves him pretty far forward), he can move away from the corner, and you don’t get the benefits of pressuring him on his weak wakeup. Boxer can backdash away against most characters (but not all, see Dictator crouching short xx scissors pressure), but then once he gets cornered he’s pretty much out of luck.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Balrog i don’t think is bad in all honesty 5/5. I mean balrog has a scary corner game and cr. RH, but you have SRK ultra, cr. MK, and a great fireball game (just has to be adjusted when playing against rog).

Headbutt is an EASY punish for your fireballs within about 2/3rd the screen, but outside that range your fireballs are actually pretty effective at zoning him. He can tap through them but you can SRK him. He’ll most likely try to get through them with headbutt or EX rush punches (if he absorbs a hit just SRK him to break the armor and push him away).

Your super punishes all dash punches on block.

SRK will punish all versions except the straight version on block (he’s just to far away afterwards). If he does upper, throw,jab, or srk. SRK takes to long to buffer to consistantly punish imo but if he cancels from a normal i find it easier for some reason.

If you get a knock down pressure with cr. LP and cr. LK meaty so if h e headbutts you can just block and punish or if you hit EX armor just cancel into a special (srk preferred). Think a meaty cr. MK will also beat lp headbutt.

Best Answers to the corner is EX fireballs if he doesn’t have a charge (riskiest imo), walk forward cr. MK (no fireball or he’ll head butt through), or TK hurricane the hell out of there. If he’s abusing cr. RH try to focus it and dash forward srk cancel or throw.

Really this matchup boils down to who get the first decent lead as you can both just start playing turtle and zoning games that the other will have a hard time breaking block. When he’s pressuring you with jabs look for openings to srk cancel to hit him with big dmg.

Don’t cross him up, unless you want to bait the head butt so you can punish the whiff with super.

Ryu Matchup Thread

this is a tough match up. STUFF his dash punches with c.mk -> fireball/DP. its not easy (especially online) cuz you either have to predict the dash punch, or react to it. either way, it will stuff it every single time. the cool thing is that when you DO stuff it, it catches them off guard and you can easily go for a cross up with out having to worry much about the headbutt. Also if you do stuff it, then theres less need to worry about blocking correctly and whatever mixup he might have after.

if you can’t get c.mk off, then sometimes ex-fireballs are more safe. (at least i think they are?)

Boxers jab is one of the best in the game.

when he does dash punch and you don’t think you can stuff, then pay close attention to his arms. block low unless you see his arm going overhead.

tell you the truth, I don’t think you want to keep him too far away. i think both characters ideally want to be at the same target distance. its just about outsmarting the other person.

Ryu Matchup Thread

For Boxer, I tend to find that it works very well to mix him up with a lot of FA’s and FADC. You can tell if his dash punch is going to be armor breaking because he will do a full turn around before dashing. Do this enough and they will be scared to dash in on you.

Also from full screen if you hadouken you will have short enough recovery time to jump straight up->punish if he does the turn around dash punch to try to punish your hadouken.

When he gets real close I tend to rely on c.mp and psychic SRKs to beat his pokes. He tends to be pretty vulnerable to cross-ups but watch out for his headbutt because he can combo that into an ultra. If he is stuffing your cross-up attempts with c.FP (Thanks mario) then I would suggest keep trying to play him on the ground.

Note: If you are pretty fast (and a little lucky), I believe you can punish the first hit of his ultra with a focus attack

Edit: If you are blocking his ultra, there is a moment before his last punch where you can punish with your own ultra

Ryu Matchup Thread

He’s crossing it up that’s why your not hitting it, Just FA it, if he doesn’t cross you up let that shit go and make him cry. If he does dash out of there and reset the spacing.

Balrog’s cr. RH imo is the only tool he has that makes this match require work. You have to have a good handle of basic footsie in this match and learn to stuff his dash punches. Also make sure your optimizing your dmg on Balrog. Lots of Ryu’s do cr. MK Fireball or Throw to punish headbutts fuck that hit a cr. MP>cr. Mp>Tatsu or f. FP>cr. Jab>cr. FP>Tatsu or f. FP Shoryu or something that hurts his ass when he goes whiffing shit. One thing to keep in mind in this matchup, NEVER use cr. RH it will get you killed it’s recovery and priority are ballz, I really think this is ryu’s WORST poke as there is no distance that makes it even semi-safe.

Just remember if your over half the screen away and you throw a fireball before he throws an EX punch try to DP (really what do you have to lose?) This makes balrogs have to headbutt through your fireballs (and even this isn’t always safe at certain distances you can catch a cr. HK) or Ultra so that should help you not have to poke with him the entire match and maybe net some free dmg. Make sure to throw in some EX fireballs occassionally in your fireball game so you don’t get randomg EX dash punched to often.
Turn Punch is Terrible in this game, absolutely awful. If you see him try and go through a fireball with this just do a dp it’ll hit.

Ryu Matchup Thread

do not jump at rog from the front.

c.fp owns all your jumpins.

however, rog is weak to crossups. j.lk and j.mk after throws.

rog also is weak on wakeup. learn to time meaty c.lk

rog is also very vulnerable to safe jumps.

it beats wakeup headbutt (non ex) and throw for free. c.jab you either get a counter hit or he’s forced to block.

be weary in throwing fireballs since he has so many options to beat them.

Ryu Matchup Thread

hmm balrog isn’t too bad of a matchup.

use your FA. sure balrog has many anti-FA options like TAP, gutpunch, etc, but if you get him with a few FA combos, he’ll think twice. plus tap’s not safe and even if you eat a few gutpunches i think it outweights the cons.

use c.forward. balrog won’t use FA that much and you can stuff a lot of his normals with good range c.forward. cancel into fireball for fun, keep mashing c.forward, and you can DP all jumps even if you whiff a c.forward

cross his ass up. neither c.fierce nor headbutt will help. it’s especially true for a wakeup situation (for balrog getting up) but even midscreen it’s hard for balrogs to anti-air you… their best bet is to jumpup fierce but randomly do j hurricane kick if you start getting hit out. if it whiffs, oh well. wtf is balrog gonna do

lookout for his overhead. you should be able to block it on reaction. if you can’t, block back most of the time. eating overhead leads to much more damage than gettng knocked down. if you block the regular or the EX version, you are guarenteed DP.

unless balrog knows how to safejump, reversal DP all their wakeup jumpins. there’s actually a timing where they can whiff the j.fierce/rh and have you whiff the DP so either learn the timing or guess. HHAHHA.

ok for some random retarded reason, there is a distance where if balrog jumps, it looks like it’ll be a crossup… BALROG DOESN’T HAVE A CROSSUP. i can’t believe just how many times i eat a jumpin combo to the face cause it looks like the character crosses up but doesn’t. ahhahah i’m so stupid. there’s also a distance where if you fierce DP, it’ll whiff so you have to jab DP or c.fierce. you’ll figure that out.

you can throw all ex moves except headbutt during startup kakakak

if you somehow end up blocking balrog super/ultra, you can DP/super/ultra between the 4th hit and the last hit.

most balrogs mash jabs/throw in pressure situations so go for your favorite CH setups often

if you throw a fireball 3/4 length of the screen away or closer from balrog, they can ultra you on reaction. i’m sure you’ve also seen people FADC the first fireball and ultra through the second fireball on reaction so don’t throw two in a row vs competent fulscreen balrog!

ok that’s all i remember at 6 am with 0 hours of sleep… but yeah just be patient during ground-game with fireballs, anti-airs and random FA’s (like how you normally do) but go aggro nutballs when you get a knockdown (like how you normally do).

easy…

Ryu Matchup Thread

Here’s another suggestion for a wiki matchup. Please suggest improvements and point out anything you disagree with.

Balrog (Boxer)

From full screen: From full screen your fireballs are safe so you should use them to zone Boxer as long as possible to get as much damage as you can before he gets into his effective range.

From mid screen: From mid range you should no longer throw fireballs as Boxer can TAP/EX rush punch/super/ultra through them. The player with the best pokes will win at this range. Do not jump in on Boxer from this range as his anti-air options are numerous and strong.

If Boxer gets impatient trying to get past your pokes and does a rush punch then it can be stuffed with a well timed cr.LP or cr.MK or dragon punch. It can also be absorbed and punished with a FA. Do not try to stuff or FA a TAP or an EX rush punch as they will beat you.

Close up: Boxer’s jabs are very quick and effective. It’s best to block and wait for an opportunity to punish. Be ready to tech any throw attempts such as tick throws or whiffed rush upper, throw.

Once you are able to score a knock down against boxer he is vulnerable to meaty jump-in cross ups. His only real options to avoid cross ups are his headbutt and TAP, both of which will get him out of danger back to mid range, but will leave you safe.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Tips for boxer:

1. He is weak against crossups. His headbutt will whiff. Just make sure you don’t empty crossup, or he will throw you. Cross him up, knock him down and KEEP THAT PRESSURE ON HIM.

2. If he is jab spamming you, a wakeup ultra will stuff his jabs and hurt like hell.

3. Many of his normals are easily punishable by a focus attack.

4. He can combo off his overhead, so try not to rely too much on crouch blocking. Better to get knocked down by his sweep than to eat a combo off the overhead.

5. You MUST find a way to punish any of his moves on block. For some characters that is easy (dictator’s standing RH is perfect) for Ryu its a little harder…if I block his dash punch, most of the time I can pull off a c.mk -> Hado to punish it. Also, since throwing fireballs can get you mauled, you should have plenty of EX bars lying around, so use EX fireballs when you know they will hit.

6. Lastly, again, it should be easy for you to build up meter…so once you have super, find the right moment and bust out a hitconfirm into super. Its hard to punish (tight timing) on block. OR try a wake up EX SRK.

7. If he corners you, use the rising air tatsu to get over him and out of the corner, this will also reset his charge but he will KEEP his TAP so watch out for that.

this one CAN be difficult because boxer’s pokes outreach ryu’s.
you need to start off the round by trying to gain meter. having ex meter is very important in this matchup. toss out more fireballs than you normally would at the beginning. space yourself to a midscreen to fullscreen distance. you don’t need to get in close right now. if he tries to get in close, step back. if he gets too close, just wait a bit and try to get space, he can’t hurt you if you’re blocking. if he jumps, DP him. he cannot pass through your fireballs very well from this distance, he HAS to gain some type of ground. most boxers will jump straight up and walk forward, or headbutt through and walk forward. make sure to NOT get hit with his j.hk, c.hk. if your fireballs are too predictable, you’ll get knocked down. so keep your fireballs safe. the thing with fireballs is don’t THINK about doing it or not doing it, just do it or you don’t. just don’t think, you’re either GOING to fireball or you’re not. don’t spend too much time walkin back and forth and then think…“ok, i’m gonna fireballl uhhh NOW”. because good players read hesitation really well and can just jump over it and hit you with j.hk, c.hk. but let’s say you don’t fall into this mindset and he DOES jump. DP, everytiime. i can’t stress this enough to people. it’s the only free damage you can get, TAKE it. if you throw a fireball and they jump over and you think it might be too late to DP, just do it. DP anyways. you might get lucky. my motto is if you can block, you can surely dp. you don’t lose anything by attempting to dp, you’re either gonna get hit, or you’re gonna land your DP.

you need to knock boxer DOWN, this is where a majority of your damage dealt will come from. because boxer can be crossed up fairly easily once you knock him down. cross him up with j.mk, and USE frame traps against him. c.lp, walk, c.lp, c.hp xx fireball works great on boxer. and even if he blocks, you gain HELLA good meter. if you HIT him with your frame trap, end with hurricane kick instead of fireball, knock him down AGAIN. the reason knocking boxer down is so important is because boxer is HARD to get in on. his pokes simply outreach you, you have to create opportunities cause a good boxer won’t let you get in on him that easy. DP’ing his jump in must be done EVERYTIME, you have to wait for it, watch for it. if it trades, make SURE you ex fireball afterwards. if you don’t, boxer wins that trade for free. you don’t want boxer getting a life lead on you PERIOD. you want him to feel like he needs to do somethin to land hits on you. i will say this though, if you cross him up and hit hits…please, just finish with a good combo into ultra if you got it, gotta get that free damage in. if you can hit confirm, make sure you do a combo into ultra everytime. don’t let your opponent get away from what should be free damage.

jumping in on boxer isn’t a good idea. his c.hp stuffs any jumpins. and even basic boxer players know how to sit in his sweet spot. boxer has a sweet spot that is just outside his c.hk range. that way he can walk in a bit c.hk you. or c.hp you if you jump in at him, or he can walk back a bit and lp straight dash to pressure you in and push you back towards the corner. you do not want him to get you to the corner. i’m not gonna go into detail on how to get OUT of the corner, you should just not be there, but if you HAPPEN to get there, try to hurricane kick out at a good time. boxer is REAL good at pushin you there. however, there is a certain range where jump-ins aren’t bad to do. it is at mid screen distance where if you jump-in. the tip of you j.hk will hit him. he won’t c.hp this and this is where can decide to pressure HIM. after that connects, you have a lot of options. you can jump in again with fp/mk and come at him with a frame trap combo or a normal link combo(gain meter). you can jump in and at the peak do a hurricane kick to cross him up. you can walk in a little, c.mk xx fireball. the point is, regardless if hit or block, you want to gain meter. if it hits, end with a combo that KNOCKS down or a combo that can be FADC’ed into ultra.

what you want to do is try to find a pattern, ANYTHING that you can exploit and get damage in. for example, find out how this boxer player is landing hits on you. for example. if you throw a fireball and he dash straight punches you immediately after, just jump straight up and come down on him with an attack and combo into knockdown. once you knock boxer down, that’s where your shenanigans happen. cross boxer up, use frame trap combos if he blocks. boxer can be really susceptible to getting hit by frame traps cause most boxers press jab in between combos. you want to make him afraid to press buttons. and then bam, throw. but i act like frame traps work a lot, they really prolly work less than 35% of the time on good players. the point however is it will work 100% of the time on anybody who is pressin buttons. but that’s when you’re throws become even more useful.

if your opponent dash straights a lot, you can FA through it. most players won’t use his other ones because they can be punished pretty easily. but don’t FA too much. cause they WILL start using his other dash punches.

watch out for his overhead dash. for example…let’s say a boxer does this combo on you…c.lp, c.lp, c.lk, ex overhead dash, c.lk, headbutt, Ultra. that’s more than half your life gone because of a stupid overhead. make sure you can SEE it and block high. you get free DP --> FADC ultra if you got it for at least 40% life. learn to spot his low’s and overhead dash punches.

do NOT whiff c.mk if possible. boxer whiff punishes it with c.hk. if possible, BAIT c.hk if you know the range he likes to do it, and take your chances and jump in on him. you won’t get right all the time and will eat c.hp, but if you guess right, you get a juicy combo.

overall, be patient. remember, boxer needs to get in close to do damage, if you’re blockin, he can’t hurt you. watch out for boxer’s throws, boxer has a lot of good mixups to catch you in them. boxer can j.hk, c.lp, walk back and wait for ANYTHING, walk back in and throw you…OR he can j.hk, c.lp, walk back, c.mp xx lp straight dash if you stick anything out. you just gotta WATCH out for little tricks boxer has and not get hit. lol, i make it sound easy but it’s really not. i still have trouble with boxer.

simple points:
-if he has ultra, don’t fireball him. play defensive. don’t play too defensive, they might be able to read that in you and start throwing you more.
-watch for his charge. he can ex dash straight punch you if you keep tossin fireballs from mid screen distance. ex fireball sometimes to keep him honest.
-he can headbutt you out of c.mk xx fireball from certain distances, but play the player, if he doesn’t know this. abuse c.mk xx fireball.
-if you manage to get in crossup range, cross him up.
-use simple shenanigans if you have them and “MANAGE” to get in close. don’t force your way to get in close, let it happen naturally.
…empty jump into dp --> FADC ->ultra
…c.lp tick throw
…j.lk, land throw OR DP -->FADC ->ultra.

there’s a lot more to this matchup that i coulda wrote, but it’s hard to explain things in writing as opposed to actually playing the game.

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

Blanka

I’ve only fought 1 blanka so far worth mentioning and he beat me but it was really close (I didn’t think his ex roll goes through ex fireballs). It’s a complete scissors paper rock game. His slide and electricity are actually pretty easy to deal with using basic moves and blocking (if he is close then use low shorts for 4 free hits followed by a sweep which he’ll need to block giving you distance or get tripped up on).

If he has no meter feel free to use slow hadoukens to keep him on guard and for a bit of free damage and to build your own meter. Once he has EX that is when things get interesting. Blanka will generally try and keep long distance to bait you into throwing a hadouken so he can EX through it. I suggest that you do so only very occasionally opting instead to stand still. Since Blank is weak in covering horizontal distance be patient. If he does a forward roll, just hit standing jab as fast as you can. You will hit him out of it then feel free to focus attack, sweep, hurricane kick or fireball for tick damage. If he tries to bait you using the flip back roll throw a fireball for tick damage. If he jumps in then DP him. If you need breathing space try to hurricane kick (use whip type which means doing it at start of jump motion which usually means you are doing a forward up, forward, down forward, down, down back, back + kick motion, the timing is very tough on this move especially if you have any lag, in fact 360 deg. piledrivers are easier to do than a proper whip hurricane kick). I’m still trying to master this move as each of the 3 kicks give a different arc and distance if done correctly and completely changes the air game for Ryu and Ken.

In any case I suggest that all Ryu and Ken players practice the timing for whip hurricane kick as it allows for air superiority against a lot of airborne opponents and gives you an escape in long and mid range game (the only sure fire way to beat this move is a mid powered airborne attack from up close otherwise you will win 60% of the time, trade 25% of the time and be beaten 15% of the time). As an aside, this move in C Vs. SNK 1 and 2 coupled with a super jump using Ryu gave him absolute airborne superiority in that game.

Blanka vs Ryu: this match-up is all about patience, but could probably go for rush down at the beginning. When blanka has ex meter, it’s almost impossible to cross him up or throw fireballs. Just have to wait for blanka to make a mistake. Cr.mp will beat a lot of his pokes.

Ryu Matchup Thread

1. Store up a super, once you block the ball you can punish him with HP super. Once you got a super they won’t ball you much.
2. I find that jump HP is very nice for jump-ins (I think it beats electricity? not sure)

I find that I use cr. mk > hadou alot to push blanka back when close range.

Ryu Matchup Thread

By my experience being put into the corner by Blanka is a very bad thing. I’m yet to find a consistent way out. Something that does work is that if a Blanka player ends a block string with electricity they’re prone to trying to trip you after it ends, which is asking for a DP. Enough times and they’ll stop tripping after electricity all together.

Also, if you block the Ultra you have two solid options (Both require meter). If you block the 1st hit you can mash out an EX DP and it should beat out the ultra. This saves you massive chip damage. If you block the full super, you can super or ultra on their way down from the last hit. Make sure you hesitate a beat before throwing it or it will whiff under them, and you’re getting punished.

Ryu Matchup Thread

ryu vs blanka.

As in ST, you can jab the fwd ball even if its an EX ball. I like to use jab because its fast but c.mp also works pretty well. The fwd ball seems pretty safe on block but very low priority. Periodically throw a few jabs. Personally, I only throw 2 that way if he starts moving, I can still follow him. Ex ball will go throw FB’s though and thats known already. IMO, the trick is to get in the range where its very hard for blanka to tell when you will throw a FB and work it. I think if blanka is in the corner and you’re pretty close to him and he does a fwd ball, you might be able to ultra reversal him. Gotta test that later.

Now his up ball is very different. iirc, the ball is drivable now. Both the regular and ex version can be EASILY beaten by c.fp. If you tip with your fist, you’ll win 100% of the time. From exp, you don’t want to shoryuken this move. First of all, if they go xup on you, chances are you’ll lose and if you trade in the air vs that move, you’ll get KD and blanka will be on top of you. Shoryuken has a very vulnerable back side hit box thats why its bad vs the up ball. C.fp stops this upball @ any angle as long as you tip it. If they decide to do xup upballs, don’t c.fp these if you see them. Simply block it. When blanka does that xup up ball and its blocked, the momentum goes towards ryu rather than away from him and ryu gets big combo. fwd+fp, c.lp, c.fp, tatsu just for blocking.

His electricity is very weak now. You can throw it, c.lp, c.mk, c.rh, c.mp and all of these will beat it out as long as you tip your moves. For instance if you’re right next to him, you don’t want to do c.mk because you’ll move fwd into the shock. @ this range if you’re not to close, c.lp, link c.mk is the better choice imo. If blanka starts doing this on wake up, make sure you’re @ the range where c.lp, combo will beat him out of the electricity. Its fast and @ this range you can still be dominant if he does nothing on wake up.

Blanka’s ground slide move seems to be toned down. It feels like it goes further than in ST but its more punishable now. This move in particular is common amongst the players I’ve played so far. I think anything closer than half screen and they throw this move out, you can always punish it with c.rh or c.mk, combo. It does go underneath FB’s though so becareful @ the range where he can do that stuff.

C.mk has very good distance in this fight for ryu. Well timed c.mk’s will FB\DP tactics will keep him busy and then when he tries to be effective with the balls, there are easy counters for those as well.

Blanka’s ultra hurts like a mother fucker. If the blanka player starts doing this on wake up, staying about 30% screen will allow to jupbck upon reaction, avoid the up part of the ultra and when you land, you can easily throw a FB\ EX FB\ ultra\super to stop him easily. His ultra is good for AA so watch out when jumping @ him. Forgot to add that blanak’s ultra can cross up so if you have to block this, pay attention. Getting hit by this ultra is not a joke.

IMO, there’s no reason to jump @ him. Blanka’s best stuff revolves around his ball usage and Ryu easily stops that. The tricky part is making blanka’s best shit ineffective while making your stuff effective. Any player in that situation will get annoyed and you can capitalize on mistakes.

Ryu Matchup Thread

To everyone out there, vs. Blanka i found out that cr. foward stuffs his normal/ex ball. so there’s no reason to just meaty cr. foward or cr. short on wake up. (if it connects, combo into srk - w/e)

My exp playing against blanka, be patient and try to bait his df-fierce (sweep) and srk it. That will usually stop them from throwing it out. (try to fireball from far distance, then when he gets close, watch for it)

if you have meter, and looking to bait blanka’s df-fierce, fireball at obvious distance to get punished, then focus cancel it when he sweeps. (if you crumple him, bnb him or standing ultra to save meter)

blanka’s love their ultra’s so bait them on wake up, when you block 1rst low attack, ex srk it and fadc - stfu ultra.

besides that, try not to waste ultra on low dmg combo’s. you will most likely only get 1 ultra since its hard to focus any of his moves and build revenge meter. (you will build alot of revenge meter from shoto’s whoring fireballs, but w/ blanka its harder to build ultra w/o getting hit.)

try not to cross blanka over… ex ball is tard and will beat most attempts at crossing up. GL TO all ryu’s out there.

gasp knows what he’s talking about.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Blanka:

1. Don’t jump at him when he has EX meter…he will EX vertical ball you.

2. Know what attacks will stuff electricity and FROM WHAT RANGE. Ryu can sweep blanka out of elec, but ONLY if he is not very close.

3. The rainbow roll (the one that goes up and comes down on top of you) only works from specific ranges, so learn what those ranges are and try to be aware of when you are vulnerable to them. (Training mode helps here). Remember that most of the time, a good blanka player will space this so it crosses up…be ready to block it as a crossup!

4. If he does a non EX horizontal roll, a crouching jab will stuff it, but you can also DP it if you are VERY fast.

5. Use training mode and figure out how to punish a whiffed or blocked ball…often an EX hado immediately after a blocked ball will do the trick.

6. LEARN HOW TO DEAL WITH HIS ULTRA. It has two parts…the first starts LOW and must be blocked LOW, then he hops up…the hop is an OVERHEAD and must be blocked high…then as if that is not enough, the blanka player can hold PPP and have blanka sit there for as long as he wants, before releasing for the final horizontal attack portion of the ball.

Ultra note 1) The first part of the ball cannot be delayed and most blanka players try to do this RIGHT in your face…you CANNOT counter ultra at this point, you MUST block low and high to get to stage 2 of his ultra.

Ultra note 2) The best strategy with Ryu that I have found is to either completely evade his ultra, or block the entire thing and IMMEDIATELY counter with your ultra/super/whatever.

Ultra note 3) Blanka’s Ultra does a TRUCKLOAD of chip damage and many blanka players will save it, until they know it will chip you to death. If you are low on health and if Blanka has his ultra BE VERY CAREFUL and do not let him get in your face…once in that situation, evade and counter is the name of the game.

ryu vs. blanka-

i’m going to start off by saying that gaining ex meter with ryu is the best thing you can do for any character matchup. with that said, ryu needs to stay close to blanka. if you are 1 character distance away from him, toss out random c.mp, or c.mk xx fireball. c.mp stuff almost anything blank has at this distance. cross blanka up more than usual at this point because once blanka has meter, crossing up is no longer than option. you can do simple things like crossup j.mk, c.lp into throw. just test blanka, see how he reacts to simple throw ticks. toss out fireballs from midscreen to fullscreen. but we careful, at midscreen, he can slide under fireball, but this is where the juice begins. play with blanka, make sure he doesn’t have charge, if you’re mid screen, you can charge for focus attack, some blanks will take the bait and slide in at you, and you can release to hit them with lvl2 or lvl3 FA. if they don’t take the bait, dash back and toss fireball and keep that distance for a bit. make sure to NEVER charge for FA if blanka has his charge. you will eat blanka ball everytime.

keep in mind, when you are mid screen distance, you don’t have to toss out fireball if you don’t want to. just WAIT, get him to jump in at you. and DP him. blanka’s tend to not have great ways to get in on you except jumping in so you can wait. blanka can’t hurt you if you’re waiting for shit. a slide blocked from this distance is punishable, pokes won’t reach you, it’s a good distance to react to what he’s doing and simply wait, make him afraid to jump in on you, become a brick wall. if he tries to walk up or hop towards you, hit him with c.mk xx fireball. just keep in the fuck away. if he happens to get in close, c.mk xx fireball, or toss out c.mp, cross him up, or DP -->FADC in between his blocked strings(not always safe but hey, you can take a few chances here and there to disrupt his flow). he has good options against blanka.

if you fireball from full screen distance, and he ex balls through it…DP ->FADC -> ultra if you got it.

afraid of ex ball?
don’t be afraid of it. it gets stuffed by random c.mp. or if you have quick reaction, dp. from full screen, you can dp everytime, it’s easy to see. but from closer distances, tossing out c.mp will just stuff it.

simple points:
-bait his ultra if he has it. NEVER meaty attack him on wakeup. remember, it’s block low, then high. but let’s say he tries to chip you and you’re about to die and he happens to get you to block his ultra. the first low block does 0 chip damage, you can ex DP him immediately after as a reversal to knock him out…no free chip damage for blanka.
-don’t cross him up if he has ex bar.
-blanka can’t hurt you if you’re waiting and spacing yourself for jump-in, or waiting for him to get close.
-if you play a blanka ball masher, hit him before blanka ball reaches you, c.mp hits it everytime, and you don’t even have to try. just stick it out, even on random sometimes, be smart with it.
-super fireball on blocked ball

there is more that can be said but, a lot of stuff is situational but these are a few things you can try to beat blanka. i will add that blanka’s crossup is really fuckin good. if blanka is the one pressuring you, get the FUCK out. he has a lot of really good baits as well. for example, hop back, how forward, ULTRA…tooo juicy, blanka’s fun.

This is worth mentioning: if you block blanka’s slide, c.mk -> ex tatsu will deal great damage against it. I’ve been in a habbit of doing c.mk -> haduken, but thats chump damage compared to the tatsu. What blankas fear most is turtling ryus. So dont be afraid to sit there.

Cammy

Ryu Matchup Thread

They’ve combined all the character matchups into that one thread at the top of the page.

No matter. This matchup is pretty easy for Ryu. Poor Cammy cannot zone properly in this matchup against him. To be successful against Cammy, you must master 2 skills:

1. Dragon punch her spinning knuckles attack on reaction. This attack is way to slow to catch you off guard and if you are getting hit by it you’re not playing this match properly.

2. Know when to punish her Cannon Drill (or is it spike? its the one where she goes horizontal on the screen) attack. This move is very unsafe for her and if she does it deep you can punish her with a two hit combo of your choice.

Thats pretty much it. If you can punish those attacks consistently there really isn’t anything else she can threaten you with. Her Cannon Spike is her best move but really you shouldn’t be jumping at her unless she is knocked down. Zone her and catch her with an ex fireball and follow it up with the crossup shenanigan of your choice.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Yeah, don’t try to cross up on Cammy on knockdown. Her cannon spike is as good an anti-air wakeup as Chun Li’s EX hurricane thing. If you do, you’ll have to balance it out by safe jumping instead and blocking her cannon spike. Unfortunately, cannon spike is pretty hard to punish, because she bounces away from you. I don’t remember if a F. fb will hit her, but I guess you might want to try mix up doing either poke strings or an FADC FP.srk when she gets up.

Ryu Matchup Thread

These tips the guys above me gave you is golden when fighting Cammy her Cannon Drill can be hadoken’d if she gets in late low block it but be careful though she can do a Cannon Spike right after the ending animation of the cannon drill so either punish her after her 2 hits from Canon Drill are blocked before the end of her animation or wait till she whiffs a Cannon Spike in front of you and punish!

Her spinning knuckle attack can be DP’ed and even Hadoken’d after she falls short of you all it is when fighting Cammy is play a good zone game/footsie oh by the way like they said above
DO NOT JUMP IN ON HER WHEN SHE’S UP HER CANNON SPIKE IS VERY HIGH PRIORITY!!!
Just dash or lk/mk Hurricane kick to get up to her and ONLY jump in when your going for a cross-in but you have to be confident that she’ll whiff her Cannon Spike otherwise make her come to you.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Well, I played against a really strong Cammy few days ago and… damn !!!
I mean, I do not know how strong I can consider myself, but I know I am not THAT bad…the guy just beat me 28 - 1 !!!

So after work on how to counter Cammy’s INSANE priority and weakness that i didn’t notice at first, i ask for a revenche (only one hour later) and I loose…but only 8 - 6.

So there is few thinks that could help people playing her for the first time :

• You can FA her spiral arrow from long/mid range

=> It can be REALLY helpful since Cammy players tend to overuse the spiral arrow to close distance…
FA once or two and they will calm down.

• You can also FA her cannon spike.

• Be carful against the spiral arrow => cannon spike combo (well it’s ont really a combo). That thing is JUST CRAZY !
  Like someone already told earlier, be carful about the distance and you will be abble to know when punish the arrow, and when wait for cannon spike.

• Punishi each cannon spike with a f.Hp combo…that will calm down your opponement a lot.

• Against her hooligan throw you can :
  => Stay down
  => Jump back
  => Shoryu
  => With a good timing back dash.

(My opponement knew I didn’t know how to block this move, so every time the round was was, he used it. After my “trainning”, I knew he would use this to finish a round as a reflexe, but only Dp => Super was waiting for him…^^)

But the more important, is to be abble to get out her insane pressure after her cannon strike (dive kick).
If you play a strong one, you won’t have time to dp after her jump on reaction because he will do it too fast.

I did not read her Databook, but it seems that this move as a huge blockstun.

Your opponement after this move will send you a link, or a throw.
Be ready to tech but do not try to hit after the cannon strike (dive kick), you will be beat.

To sum up, most cammy’s move have INSANE priority but are HIGHLY punishable.
Just be prepare for them and punish.
Do it 3 or 4 times, and it will break your opponement rythm letting you more space to press him yourself.

Awesome thread man. A thing to add for Cammy:

After blocking a cannon spike, immediately dash > hp > hp shoryuken

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

Chun-Li

Chun Li seems strong vs Ryu. Her Ultra freezes screen and she can do the ultra upon seeing the fireball which will still get ryu hit… Very Cheap that it goes pretty much full screen distance almost. I would say watch her back and foruth movement a lot of new players dont buffer her ultra. Her jump atacks beat out ryu’s pretty often and she can combo off of fp into head stomp… I came up with just turtle vs her. I have done a lot of experimenting with vs her, even if its only a couple days worth… things may get better as I fight her…

Ryu Matchup Thread

Chun matchup
No ultra try and mixup the midrange game with hadoukens, cr. MK, and Focus attacks. Mid range is important as at full screen they’ll just absorb the fireballs and build ultra without risking taking any dmg. If they absorb 2 fireball I try to get in any poke i can. Fireball pressure is still important early game just make sure it’s pressure and not pointless full screen fireballs.

Lots of good chuns use cr. MP and cr. HK cuz they are amazing pokes. However, they aren’t cancellable. So Focus attacks are free dmg if they hit or a free get in card and once your on her just bait the EX Spinning bird and punish with a shoryuken or srk fadc. I think you can also punish at certain distances with cr. MP link combo’s. Lots of Chuns will throw a LP Fireball than move in behind it with a cr. HK or cr. MP, so try and get a combo here with a focus attack occassionally. If they do it on wake-up they might go for throw so SRK FADC becomes a strong option.

Ultra DOES change this match. Fireballs just don’t do them unless you are CERTAIN they have no charge or are not going to be able to interrupt cr. MK fireball (they can and they will if you do this at a bad range).

In the corner I try and get an SRK FADCxxthrow to try and get out as the only time she can actually deal a significant amount of health is in the corner. Be very defensive the corner.

Really the matchup isn’t that bad cuz you deal a lot more dmg especiallly midscreen. Just have to treat EX spinning bird as an SRK once she has meter and it’ll get easier.

Jumping at her, she’s hard to crossup while standing so only do when knocked down. cr. FP, st. RH, EX spinning bird, and j. FP,FP are all ok anti-airs really i reccomend trying to beat her on the ground as j. FP,FP is really good. Beating her on the ground is work, but the matchup isn’t bad by any means.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Don’t be predictable with your fireballs when she has Ultra. As soon as she has ultra, just try to get some space, wiggle back and forth, and throw a fireball every know and then when you see her break charge. If your opponent is single tracked on getting that ultra, she’ll focus on baiting out more and just play defensively. You can take advantage of that. Try to Anti-air her jump ins. Her fierce fierce combo is nasty because she and mix it up with fierce low short, giving her a solid high low mix up. If you do a deep jump in, she has a hard time taking you on air to air without using EX SBK or neutral jump roundhouse. Watch out for neckbreaker. That move is great at beating out DPs (or at least trading).

I have my own question, though. I’m starting to get used to the Blanka match up, but I still have trouble when he’s in sweep range. I like to stay out of sweep range because I have enough time to jab him out of ball on reaction, or DP him out of the air. But when he’s in sweep range I feel like I have to keep a defensive crouch so I don’t get knocked down. What do you guys do? I figure I could just sit there and either punish a blocked sweep (if it’s not spaced correctly) or just block a ball and get some space that way. Also, why is electricity not as popular in SFIV than it is in HDR? Thanks in advance.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Hi guys, it seems like quite a few people would like to have input on the matchups that are posted on the wiki. I figure it would be smart to draft them here and get everyone’s input and then what gets published will be generally accepted.

Might as well start with Chun Li since what’s up there now leaves a fair bit to be desired…

Ryu vs Chun Li

From full screen: Ryu can always win fireball battles with Chun, but do not throw fireballs at her if she has ultra, as it can travel though fireballs to hit you from almost full screen. Make her have to work and combo into her ultra.

Chun’s jump is quite floaty and therefore easy to anti-air with dragon punch or cr.HK if she does try to jump in on you from a distance.

From mid screen: This is a tricky distance for both of you. Chun’s overhead flip kick (and ultra) can go through your fireballs, so they should be used conservatively. You should also be very sparing in your use of FAs to counter her attacks as many of her attacks hit multiple times and her BnB involves chained shorts and EX legs. Never FA a jump in from Chun as her target combo (done in the air) will beat it. Her overhead flip kick and cr.HK have great range, but both can be absorbed and punished with FA. If you see the overhead flip coming you can beat it with dp (xx FADC, Ultra).

Chun has quite weak anti-air options, but very good air-to-air priority. In response to a jump in attempt Chun will often jump to meet you in the air to do her air-throw, target combo or neutral j.HK - all of which have a very good chance of beating you unless you anticipate and throw out your attack early. Also be wary of her EX SBK, which is her best wake-up reversal. EX SBK can be beaten with a lucky cross-up as long as it’s very deep.

Up Close: Chun is very vulnerable to cross-ups so if you find youself in the position to cross her up then you should press your advantage. Face to face she is very effective at applying pressure with a relentless string of quick attacks that will stuff many of Ryu’s normals, so your best option is to block and wait until she does something that can be punished.

Ryu Matchup Thread

vs chunli:

you CAN beat the ex sbk on their wakeup, but you can’t beat it if they are waiting for it. 99% of chunlis will be looking to do an ex sbk if they are cornered so be really careful about jumping at that point.

everytime you are knocked down and they go the df rh crossup, you can reversal dp it every single time. make sure you know how to do that

chunli’s jump is REALLY float and long so you should be able to DP every single one of her jumps… which means majority of you vs chun is footsies… chun will do nothing but jabs, s.strong, and c.rh as normals and fireball, ex sbk, and overhead as specials. play patiently and solid with c.strong, c.forward and c.rh, and only jump when you are about cross-up range.

what do you guys use to punish a blocked overhead? i usually just block and do nothing or DP if i see it coming…

do NOT throw fireballs cause good chuns can do the overhead on reaction and it punishes every time. they can also ultra through even from full screen so don’t bother. if you block, you can reversal ultra though.

ok, so basically what you’re saying is “everything” about chun-li is givng you problems. lol.

i’m going to start off by saying that ryu can ONLY(almost only, lol) do damage in close. chun-li has all the tools to just keep you away, her pokes outreach yours, her fireball is good in it’s own right, her walk speed is a lot better, her back dash is amazingly good, and her ultra goes through your fireballs, and she has fairly effective anti airs against ryu. so with all this in mind, your best bet is to make this a CLOSE battle. now, here comes the tricky part, how to get in close.

generally, fireballs are FAIRLY safe from midscreen distance. btw, i wanna add this too, if chun-li jumps in at you, there should be NO reason you shouldn’t DP. her jump is really floaty so you can spot it from a mile away. but anyways, don’t be afraid to fireball. c.mk xx fireball is good too. just need to stay out of her c.hk range and if it whiffs, walk in and punish it with c.mk xx fireball, most likely she can block it but it’s still applying a bit of pressure and meter gainage. you say c.mk loses to her pokes but that’s prolly because she’s punishing your whiffs or you’re throwing them out there to just stick something out and hope it hits, you just can’t throw it out there stupidly. the best times to really throw c.mk out is when she is recovering from her pokes and that’s when you walk in c.mk xx fireball.

don’t be afraid to jump in either. try to bait an attack before you jump in though. for example, like let’s say she’s poking you with s.mp, s.fp, c.hk, or whatever she’s throwing out at you. walk INTO the range of those attacks, right when you feel like she can bust out one of those moves, jump into her and hit her with a jumping attack. if she recovers too fast and blocks, frame trap her. like j.mk, walk, dp --> fadc --> ultra. or j.mk, c.lp, walk, c.lp, c.hp xx fireball. or j.mk, c.lp, throw or j.mk, wait, throw. you gotta create guessing games against her. i like to call all these setups my bag of tricks. cause they really are just stupid tricks to hopefully land damage. but they aren’t stupid…cause it works, it’s simply just guessing game.

if she has ex meter, don’t bother jumping in on her if she’s charged. watch for her charges. if you knock her down, just toss a fireball for her to block it or somethin. or you can even get in close and bait her ex sbk and punish it with c.fp xx dp or c.hk, or whatever you wanna do. just pick and choose what you want to do.

if you think a fireball is coming, hurricane kick through it, or jump on instinct/reaction(sometimes you can just sense a fireball comin, and it feels like reaction).

as far as her crossup kick goes, just block it. when she lands, dp–>fadc, or keep blocking until she’s done with her string. the point is, make her afraid of continuing strings.

a lot of her blocked strings are harder to do so you can dp in between them sometimes, don’t be afraid to take chances with that. condition your opponent to think that you can dp ANY poke string she throws at you. so once she’s afraid of that, she won’t finish her poke strings as often and will wait for it, so now she’ll be less likely to continue pressure on you.

and her kick thingy(overhead) move, watch out for that too, don’t throw predictable fireballs. throw maybe 2 in a row at MOST, and then wait a bit, if she didn’t jump or do this move, toss out another one. don’t think, just do. don’t think too much on WHEN to throw fireballs, you gotta get it in your head that you either just throw one out, or you don’t. thinking about it causes the other person to react better on when to jump or when to do moves to get past it.

like i said, once you get in close, MAKE her guess. that’s the best thing you can do. this game is a lot of guessing simply because of how good throwing is and how good dp -> fadc is. get them scared.

this is a HARD matchup, to be honest, chun-li can space better than ryu can. so you seriously just have to take chances and make her guess. and ryu is REALLY good at making you have to guess.

Dan

Dhalsim

I’m not great at this matchup, but I’m pretty good. Here’s a few things I’ve learned:

-Get used to SRK’ing or doing c.hp in response to a teleport near you. You can’t let him feel safe by teleporting behind you and attacking with an air attack.

-You can’t deal with his fireballs like you can with anyone else. Fireballing them, FA absorbing them, or tatsu’ing over them (non-psychic) will each earn you a s.hp to the nuts. Jumping over them is also rarely an option. Block, run, or wait for him to get predictable and do a psychic jump or tatsu. Red fireball is also nice because he has a ton of recovery from his fireball.

-Dhalsim has no real way to deal with aggression. Keep on him and he has no good options to turn the odds in his favor. Just react to when he teleports behind you.

-When trying to cross the screen, there are three good ways to deal with his s.hp. One is a psychic SRK - from long range he can punish it with a s.hp, but who cares. Second is FA (when there’s NOT a fireball on screen). If he does a s.hp, you can release and hit his arms, often crumpling him. Otherwise its a good opportunity to dash. This is my favorite of the option. Third, you can psychic c.mp or c.hp to try to stuff his limbs. Not reliable, but very safe. It’s good to throw out crap like this randomly just to keep him honest.

I play a lot as Dhalsim, and one of the things that gives me the toughest time with Ryu is when he does a tatsu through my yoga fire. It’s one of the safest and easiest ways to get in on sim. Yoga fire has really slow recovery, so if you time it right, you’ve got your ticket to open the flood gates on sim. Full screen tatsu through yoga fire is a bad idea as you might end up getting hit during your recovery frames, but if he does it from say 3/4 or half screen you can generally do a hk.tatsu and hit him. Remember to only tatsu through yoga fire as Sim can stuff tatsu with s.mp, c.hp, or b.rh on reaction. Once you’ve got him cornered keep the pressure on, and try to stay on the ground, and not get predictable with your jump-ins while doing it. Sim has really good anti-air options; b.mp will stuff most all of Ryu’s short jump ins, and b.rh will stuff most all of his jump-in attacks from distance. Sim is basically just looking for a way to get out of the corner and get his distance from you. His main ways of doing that will be to either slide underneath a jump attempt (so, once again, don’t get predictable with your jump in attacks when you have him cornered), or he will try to teleport out of the corner once you give him a little bit of breathing room, bait it, or be prepared to srk it on reaction.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Good point. I fought a couple of Dhalsims last night and lost, but did some experimentation:

1. Don’t just throw out a random fireball. Dhalsim can just teleport and overhead on reaction.
2. Don’t Focus his fireball. A good Dhalsim can just do a low poke that hits simultaneously, knocking you out of Focus.
3. If you have good enough reflexes, you can Focus his pokes on reaction, but you probably won’t have enough time to get across the screen to take advantage of crumple unless you have a Super stored up and use the HP version.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Against Sim, maybe I haven’t played many really really good Sim players, but I just run away.

I back off and do fireballs a lot, because Ryu’s fireballs are faster than Sims, and I walk back.
I try to hit his limbs (usually the Jump HP one) with Stand HP or Stand HK.
When he tries to close in by jumping in, I do jump towards IMMEDIATELY hurricane (kinda like juice kick)

I find that playing defensively vs Sim works a lot better than offensively rushing in, because Sims long range pokes will stop you or take off some damage before you get near him.

Ryu Matchup Thread

ALWAYS BLOCK HIGH, his lows are not scarey unless he has super. Maybe at point blank on occasssion block low just to keep him guessing, but sims are going to instant overhead you alot or do a lot of j. bFP.

Don’t fireball a lot unless you are FULLSCREEN as he’ll peg you otherwise, and his fireball recovery SUCKS so he’ll have to be tricky to approach you if you have lifelead. Since his fireball moves so slow and he has such bad recovery you can actually on reaction Tatsu over it from 2/3 the screen.

If you get hit by a limb here are your options

1. Block (best may get you pushed out but you are taking needless dmg, as always block high)
2. shoryuken (ume shoryu the following FP if you think he’s going to do another one immediately, LPshoryu of course)
3. FA (riskiest as I’m serious those FP’s nearly combo together on hit)
   Do not jump you will not leave the ground before the next FP connects if you got hit.

Well you can FA the fp’s (dash back if it’s not a fierce) than dash forward, but than there’s a mix up you can block and lose some distance or do a random light dp. If he pauses he’ll peg you on your dp recovery. If he tries to peg you at the end of your dash you’ll get a knockdown which is 95% of the fight, the other 5% is mixing him up so you can get a life lead. Once you get lead let him come to you as it’s much harder to win if you try to get in again (i know it’s boring but effective).

Remember at half screen+ he can’t get more than a fierce worth of dmg on you so doing a random DP to keep him scared every now and than does a lot.

If he jumps at you don’t dp as he can bait with teleport, try to dash under him if he’s close and mix him up when he lands or bait his anticipatory teleport and punish that.

You need to train yourself so when he teleports he doesn’t gain anything from this, ALWAYS be looking for this as this is one of your few oppurtunities to get big dmg in this match. I sometimes just buffer a dp motion just in case, if you get the dp and have ultra man your going to be in the lead most likely. If you block a j. FP and have meter 75% of the time i reccomend dp cancelling as sim really wants to press an advantage in this situation.

His anti-airs are GOOD, but they are situational if your jumping in from more forwardish he needs to use b.HK and if your coming from above b. MP? something like that. If your jumping in you always want to use FP, it’s much harder for him to anti-air and at some spacing and angles can beat his b. HK which is just plain gross as you get a jump in combo (but don’t plan on that as it’s rare and probably depends on when dhalsim does his attack). However, since he has to do them differently you can use a HK Tatsu to change your trajectory and get behind him when you know he has to use bHK and you’ll get a knockdown and try to follow it up quickly so he doesn’t teleport away. As always jumping is kinda a mixup and the ground is where you should be more often than not, as he can peg you out of the air real easily.

You gotta just have a good offense once you get the knockdown and press the advantage as much as you can. I played my first really good sim player yesterday and lost the first 5 or so, but ended up being ahead like 15-7 by the end. It’s just really tricky.

Ryu Matchup Thread

I don’t have much experience against really high level Sim players, but as far as I can tell trying to get him into the corner and knock him down is your biggest priority. Once you have him down in the corner you can really mess him up with various pressure games, tick throws, etc. I do a lot of fireballs and get reckless with my hurricane kicks. If you score one psychic hurricane over a yoga fire (his recovery on his yoga fire is one of the worst for projectiles) you’ve already done half the work, and even if you fuck up his punishes aren’t very scary. Most of the time I just eat a cr.fp.

But yeah, I’m not great against Sim so I’ll let other people take this one

Ryu Matchup Thread

I previously answered this in the AKS thread. My $0.02 on this is…

Dont rush. Dont try and jump in immediately. Sim needs to hurt you from far, but ALL of his attacks can e countered. Buffer SRK’s to try and counter anything he throws. You can FA his pokes an hit cause they all have slow recovery. Basically, youre looking to hit 1 of his pokes for a knockdown to get in. Youre best way of doing this is to just block and defend. Get an idea of his attack habbits, then, when you think he’s going to attack, SRK. OR, you can tatsu over a fireball - though I personall dont like this strategy.

99% of people lose to Sim because they instantly assume they have to get in, and they rush it. Just WAIT.

my personal favourite strategy is to just jump over one of his fireballs and stand still. Most Sims will then try for a poke to gain more distance. SRk or FA it, then youre in and it should be much easier.

Ryu Matchup Thread

k; yeah, you dont want to hadouken unless it’s just to kill a yoga fire (though you probs wont wanna do that ever either).

A Sim with a lead is a pretty difficault situation (if the Sim’s smart). Basically, they’re not gonna commit to anything without being forced.

You have to just WALK forwards (or dash). Obviously, at some point theyre gonna throw a poke to push you back. That, once again gives you the options of SRKing or FAing.

Just realise that youre not gonna beat Sim from a distance without him making a mistake, and that any move you use is going to be countered. The ONLY way youre ever gonna hit Sim from distance is with frame advantage. You need to make him do SOMETHING and then counter it, or get past it. options here would include : walking up, baiting poke, SRK
FADC an FB, he’ll jump, SRK
just jab a shit load whilst moving forward (jab beats loads of Sim’s moves)
if you have super, make him jump using a regular FB then Super him (time it tightly)
that’s about it… there arrent really alot of things you can do. Just make him poke you, have an SRK buffered. and hit him.

sorry it took me a while, been busy playin sf4 and other things, hahaha.

4.5-5.5
ryu vs. dhalsim:

general-
dhalsim generally tend to do really well against shotos. ryu players are never safe in this matchup. you always have to worry about limbs. this matchup doesn’t allow you to play a typical poking game. dhalsim is generally in control since he has the reach and fireball and very good AA options to keep you away.

ryu does most of his damage in close. once you get in, you gotta trick up dhalsim. use any shenanigan you got. every mixup up your sleeve to land damage. use throw setups, frame traps, overhead strings, hit confirm combos, etc. keep dhalsim guessing, he’ll get scared. dhalsim’s close game is fairly weak. try not to use typical block strings against dhalsim often, take advantage of dhalsim’s main weakness and stay close. c.lp is very good against dhalsim. gives you lots of options when close.

getting in close is the hardest part, i’ll talk more about this…

there is NO guaranteed way to get in close. that is why i believe this matchup is slightly in dhalsim’s favor.

since there is no guarantee, i will talk about the options that you do have.

FA through his limbs - it gets you closer but it leaves you at the risk of getting hit again and losing gray life. this can be good to throw dhalsim off guard and get him uncomfortable with how close you can get. dhalsim typically throws out limbs to get you away, not to have you come in closer. light limbs, hard limbs. you can actually hit him on his way back from s.fp limb just don’t take risks after you land the hit, gain back gray life if possible.

psychic DP - the problem with this is not many people are good at reading when limbs will come. so it’s best to try to read dhalsim patterns. does he like to throw limbs consecutively? does he throw limb after block fireball? maybe even after fireballs collide? you have to really pay attention to play style, patterns, and habits. after blocked limb, do not go for reversal for psychic dp. wait a little for second limb, especially if it is HP limb.

jump in - here’s the deal with this one. once you get into jump range. dhalsim players wait for this and play more patiently. most dhalsim players will make you AFRAID to jump, because he has so many options to anti air you. once you get in that mindset that you cannot jump, that’s when dhalsim is at his greatest advantage. now all the dhalsim player has to do is just keep you grounded and poke you with limbs.
jumping in DOES work sometimes, you just have to choose wisely, and when i say wisely, i really mean take calculated guess. dhalsim does NOT feel comfortable in your jump-in range after a while, he will try to create space whether it be by poking with lights, dashing back, or jumping back.

ex fireball - keeps dhalsims honest. dhalsim players FP against traded fireballs is in dhalsim’s favor. ex fireball is not. plus you get your knockdown.

sorry i can’t give more info, this is the only matchup where i feel calculated guessing is a big part of main strategy.

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

E. Honda

Ryu Matchup Thread

Tip number 1 for dealing with Honda: Remember that he sucks in Street Fighter 4.

If you feel like you can’t get ahead in a round, remind yourself that E.Honda just doesn’t have that many TOOLS (everyone’s favorite word) in Street Fighter 4 and take advantage of that.

Unlike Bison and Blanka, because E.Honda’s name does not start with a B he doesn’t get an EX attack that rolls through fireballs. Therefore, your basic fireball patterns will work wonders on him.

Look to piss off your opponent and cause him to jump at you where you can proceed to ultra him back across the screen. His butt splash is risky as well because if they do it too deep you can punish after you block it.

Once in a while do a cross up but be careful that you don’t screw it up and get his command throw.

Be patient and remember that its Ryu’s match to lose and that a zoning Ryu can shut down just about everything E. Honda has.

The only time you need to worry is when E.Honda has an Ultra because (I THINK, can’t remember) he can Ultra through your fireballs and smash you good. When he gets the Ultra, just chill out and dragon his attempts to get in.

Ryu Matchup Thread

C. MK is your friend in this match up. and you dont want to jump at him too much.

if you do trip him, make sure your crossups are solid. his ex headbut is a great anti-air that will get you

All honda players will want to get in on you so they can get off the ochio throw and mix you up with butt stomps.

so keep him out with fireballs and c.mk, and punish his jump ins if the opportunity arises

Ryu Matchup Thread

if he full screen head butts (ANY version) you can beat it out w/ cr. mp.
if he whores out butt stomps, block 1rst hit and focus the 2nd. punish accordingly.
his j. hp is RETARDED priority. (neutral jump hp) I’ve seen it beat out ryu s.hk, cr. fierce.

he’s gonna hate fireballs so whore them out (safely) from a good distance where he has to react quick, or block. ( you want the chip, or him trying to focus back dash) The more he goes towards his corner, the easier it will be to punish his headbutts because he can’t recover from a good distance away, he’s in corner.
bait out his ultra/super so he cant punish your fireballs, most scrubs will wake up ultra, wake up super… after a knock down, get close to him (but out of throw range) and walk back and forth quickly to scare him into thinking your going to do something. hopefully he wake’s up ultra, but watch out because he can go straight into super after ultra for free… just block both and throw fireballs once again.

gl to you and your matches against honda.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Also remember: Honda can’t go through fireballs hardly at all.

You can zone the crap out of him and make him work really hard to close the distance.

If you can put on a good defense and get a healty life lead (30% or so), you can run away the rest of the match and drive him CRAZY with frustration that you aren’t falling for his nonsense trap.

This is the same thing as ELF players spamming the press back and forth…its a gimmick, it works some of the time…so once you learn how to evade them, watch their game turn to junk (most of the time).

Ryu Matchup Thread

Fireball spam AT THE RIGHT DISTANCE is really good.

Do not become predictable at the range where he can jump over and get a combo if he predicts your fireball correctly. A lot of your SRKs will trade his jump-ins, be prepared for this and make sure you EX fireball all trades, the extra damage is well needed in this match.

At footsies range, watch for his walk-up f.rh, it hits low. Try to catch him at this range with a sweep. You can’t throw them out recklessly, you have to think and make sure that at the very least it’ll connect for a block. If he jumps your sweep your recovery is really bad so you’ll eat another huge combo or at the least an oicho throw.

After you catch him with a sweep or a throw make him your bitch with cross-ups. Tick throws are pretty bad against him when he has meter because he can get out of your pressure games with EX-headbutt.

If you’re really good with timing you can try to cr.jab/cr.mp him out of the air during his mid-screen headbutts, but it’s risky.

So yeah, all I can think of for now.

Ryu Matchup Thread

If you are trading when he jumps at you just FA dash back, then instant air tatsumaki if you are cornered. You have to run away a bit, until like you say, you have meter, then you can go for the trade and the ex hadouken or ultra. Dash back beats everything but slaps, so don’t get to predictable, use a lot of c.mk hadouken, your pokes are faster, but not longer, so once you are in c.mk range he will either jump (FA), if he doesnt have a charge (poke away, c.mk hadouken) if he does have a charge, throw the c.mk and watch out for the butt splash.

And don’t get knocked down, LOL. Seriously your best bet is to not get knockdown.

honda vs. ryu

honda’s options:

stop sign - honda’s jump straight up fierce punch. this stuffs practically all of ryu’s jump-ins.

headbutt - works great as anti air and also as poke.

HHS combo - +6 on block, +10 on hit can combo, honda has a lot of options after this.

s.hk - great ground poke.

don’t be afraid to fireball honda. honda cannot pass through fireball except if he has ultra or super. don’t make them predictable, gain meter(important) for DP trades(ex fireball followup) and FADC.

keep honda away. honda will probably stop sign over your fireballs. this is ok, you are gaining meter, it’s ok. eventually, honda will want to close distance and attack. don’t be predictable, stick to your ground game. honda’s s.hk is great poke and you need to block this on reaction. honda’s that abuse stop sign will get owned by ryu’s s.hk. you HAVE to know stop sign distances or your s.hk will get beat by stop sign. honda can control is stop sign movement by going backwards or forwards and he will probably go backwards. this is why you need to walk in. if you aren’t too careful, honda will s.hk you on ground for walking in too close, block on reaction or early.

honda’s jumpin will trade with dp sometimes so you need to ex fireball right after or you will lose the trade.

don’t make jump-ins predictable. stop sign STUFFS jumpins. hondas can stop sign randomly and be safe so honda’s will semi-abuse this. walk in, block s.hk if he throws it out, if he stop signs, walk close and s.hk.

headbutts can’t be punished by ryu, unless you have super. against headbutt abusers, make distance, jump back and create space, if he headbutts, dp when you land. if not, fireball and play the zoning game. if it looks like you won’t make it to the ground in time, hk on your way down from back jump and 50/50 hit or miss.

halfscreen distance to full screen, if you see charge. tap df, df, df, buffer shortcut DP, if he throws headbutt, DP --> FADC–> ultra if you got it. fireballs can be throw from this distance.

buttslam is unpunishable - block it, don’t attack after, second one can follow if you try to attack and can beat you jumping back. watch for ochio tick guessing game. buttslam can whiff, punish if it does. try to regain space.

honda has very good ochio guessing game with s.lp. can follow s.lp with HHS or ochio.

after HHS is guessing game too.

don’t leave gaps in strings. honda can ex headbutt to disrupt string safely.

crossing up honda isn’t safe, buttslam works well against crossup.

El Fuerte

Ryu Matchup Thread

Ok, well first off the first thing you have to watch out for is when El Fuerte does his Habanero Dash he has 4 options of attacks.
First if he is dashing towards you then he has the choice of a Sweep, a combo linking kick, or a jumping body slam. Most likely will be a Body slam or sweep. I rarely see El Fuerte’s use a kick. Second off, if you manage to knock him down or he reverses his dash just in time and fakes you he has the choice of another Jumping Body Slam.
If he retreats all the way to the corner of the screen he most likely will be jumping off the wall and heading towards you with yet another body slam… these body slams can all be countered by a simple Shoryuken.
But please be aware of the fact that they might miss the wall jump body slam on purpose to lure you in and get you in a reversal dash body slam.

So… just in case you managed to get knocked down by El Fuerte you might want to do a quick get up followed by a H.Tatsumaki to get distance.
because he will most likely try to keep crossing you up with the body slam everytime you get up. Which can lead to massive amounts of damage and of course this is El Fuerte’s most known technique.

Basically in this game use your zoning game and Shoyuken game.
Use your Hadouken to lure him into you or send him cornering and he will most likely do a body slam off the wall and you can counter with a shoryuken.

Also, use caution when Fuerte has a Ultra or Super because he can catch you right out of the tatsumaki. So limit that move when he has those Bars.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Depending on the gimmicks. If a decent Elf (where are they?) starts running silly, they will do probably splash, slide, or mix up a throw. If your timing is good, c.mk can knock him out of a run, unless he ex’s it. Jump back rh (sort of like Wall-Dive counters) should get you out of it.

If Elf is wall jumping and being a clown, I assume he’s holding a kick button for the s.fp -> bomb combo. l.dp when he flies towards you. Also, his bomb has a strange start up which can throw your timing off, so watch out.

When he has Ultra, don’t whiff a dp, ever.

Edit: Good Elf’s can dance around fireballs all day long. With fast reflexes on dp’s you should be able to pressure him close. He’s very weak and is a push over until he has ultra, where he will wait for a simple mistake, probably while poking out c.jabs

Ryu Matchup Thread

lol do you play on xbox live? i’m at about 7k bp right now and there are 2 fuerte’s that loop like madmen that shit is crazy, The matchup is a lot of guessing and trying to abuse your risk reward. Biggest problem imo is SRK loses to his dashing FP throw thing and LP shoryu is absolutely worthless as it only beats the slide.
Learn to defend against his shit is really all you can do.

If you expect the body slam i reccomend FADC’ing and treating it like vega’s walldive, but the throw isn’t guaranteed so train them with throw and mix in SRK cancel ultra.

The throw still is giving me troubles as i haven’t found anything i can do to punish the shit jump straight up and he recovers before you land and i think can even punish you with his anti-air thingy. Your best option is to try and backdash punish it or just jump the hell out of there and try and keep him off you.

If he jumps off the wall just srk him …

Be careful with fireballs use them but sparingly and not when he’s within half or so screen, his body slam actually i think doesn’t have a hit box at the beginning of the move, as i’ve seen him literally jump through a fireball with it but not entirely sure.

@LuCieD (fuerte match up)i’ve found that moving around and not standing in one spot made it difficult for fuerte to “home in” on my position to land his “moves”. fuerte likes to get in close to execute is “throw-type-moves”, bodysplash, or slide. i try to play him at a distance so if he jumps off the wall to get in close, it is easy to see it coming for an easy DP. to execute some of furetes more damaging ‘moves’ fuerte has to do his “running” move first so in order for him to get in close and do lets say a ‘bodysplash’ he has to run at you. if you don’t stay in one spot its harder for fuerte to time when to execute his bodysplash. i also like to throw in a few tatsu when he’s running towards me that ususually brakes things up and keeps him on his toes. watch out for his crossups/mixup they are very good, doing a quick standup when knocked down and tatsu out of there could help…

i am no expert, but just wanted to contribute what i’ve experienced, since i’ve learned so much from people like mickey d, kuma, aks216, etc… thanks again guys, my ryu is coming along nicely, slowly but surely…

Fei Long

Ryu Matchup Thread

This is very true, and it doesn’t help that his flame kick has great priority as well.

For me, I feel playing footsies and conditioning with full screen hadou zoning is the best way to go. You can’t afford to whiff anything against a good Fei player cause his Rekka has insane speed, so playing it safe is your best bet. There isn’t much he can do to you if you turtle.

With that said. c.mk xx hadou is your best friend.

From full screen: From this distance you should zone Fei as hard as possible for as long as possible using your fireballs.

From mid screen: From this distance Fei’s chickenwing becomes a threat, but since it has such slow startup Fei has to anticipate your fireballs to use it effectively. With this knowledge you can bait him to use it and then punish him.

Fei has strong anti-air - do not jump in on him unless it is a deep crossup.

Once Fei gets in to the edge of poke range he has the advantage because of his superior speed. You can anticipate his attacks with cr.MK xx fireball or run away to a safer distance.

Up close: The safest option up close is to play defensively, wait for an opening and then punish.

Once you have a knock down you can run away, bait a reversal flame kick, or do a meaty cross-up (must be deep to beat his flame kick). Remember that his EX flame kick will beat a crossup.

Ryu Matchup Thread

just been thinking about this. Personally, I’m not sure there’s a lot of point in zoning Fei, his jump is awesome and he’ll just FADC through it. That means youre giving him ultra metre. Fireballs are important, but I think they just need to be thrown randomly for poking and to bait.

Also, be VERY wary of his FA. Its so damn quick its unreal. I had a Fei pretty much murder me with just FA and pokes yesterday. Not sure what to do about it though.

Can definately cross him up a lot, even if he has EX. EX takes 5 frames of start-up, I think its invincible though (someone confirrm that please?) but if you bait it you obviously get a massive opening into ultra.

Thing to realise here is that Fei Long has a very solid game, and his pokes are better than Ryu’s. Up close, defence is definately the main game. I guess its a case of being patient.

BTW; is Fei Long actually low tier? i’ve seen him rated both high and low. Personally, I think he’s a great character, but that might just be cause he’s good against Ryu. Maybe he sucks against other characters.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Fei’s flamekicks all have 5 frames of startup with invincibility. EX flamekick has one extra frame of invincibility on his first active frame, so if your crossup is truly meaty then he should be hitting you while he’s still invincible. I’ll have to test it out when I get home tonight, but I haven’t had much luck in the past (perhaps my timing or spacing was just dodgy).

It’s a good point you make about his FAs. Particularly when it comes to our favourite cr.MK xx fireball since we tend to rely very heavily on it, and everybody knows it.

A favourite trick of Fei players (which is even written up in their matchup thread) is to walk in looking for cr.MK xx fireball and block the cr.MK, focus the fireball and then punish. It’s often worthwhile mixing up your pokes with things like:
cr.MK xx EX fireball
cr.MK, backdash
cr.MK, FA

As for Fei’s actual tier listing it’s very hard to find anything concrete since most lists only contain the arcade roster. :arazz:

Ryu Matchup Thread

i think the trick is to make fei earn every inch of property with fireball > backdash when necessary… also this will allow you to bait chickenwings, try to duck or neutral jump them, if the cw hits you then it’s 0 frame punish. This makes it very important that CW doesnt touch you (Even on block).

Otherwise it’s footies and ability to ultra.

P.S. Don’t jump towards fei, ever. lol

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

Gen

Ryu Matchup Thread

Gen vs. Ryu
Learn to look for his jump … he wants to jump bad. However, Ryu’s FP shoryuken eats his jumps. Cr. Mk lets you ground zone him all day as his pokes suck. just frustrate him into jumping with safe hadoukens and cr. Mk and punish with shoryu ultra. Gen doesn’t have many good options against ryu just his jump is very very good and hard to reactively dp consistantly.

Ryu Matchup Thread

you can punish any of his off the wall dive kicks w/ srk.
his cr. short (the one that pops you to the air) is punishable, rape him if he does it.
i believe he has a hard time getting ppl off of him on wake up.
i also believe he cant do anything on wake up.
practice block strings and try to mix up a throw in between to catch him off guard.
if he’s starting to tech your mix ups, repeat that mix up, but instead of throw put a srk-fadc-ultra. (i catch them all the time w/ this b/c they are always trying to mash either tech-throw/jab to beat your throw)

throws opens them up to doing something. punish that opportunity when he gives it to you. gl

Ryu Matchup Thread

I not sure whether you mean is wall jump or his regular jump. For his wall jump, its really just a case of watching his angles, SRKing if possible or sometimes just jumping up with mk or fk…

if you mean his regular jump cross-up. Gens jumps are a bitch. They pretty muc make it unsafe to FB from any distance except full screen, so bear that in mind. You can definately counter his cross-ups, but I personally prefer just to block. Use a solid ground game against him, your basic pokes and shit. Gen’s great when youre throwing FB’s, jumping and trying to be all aggressive, but if you limit your attacks to ground moves, never jump, and dont FB from anywhere except full screen, you should find that Gen really neds to work for his hits, and you can counter, and throw some basic pokes and shit out. All in all, Gen is a counter character - he wants you to attack so he can dive over, or cross you up, or whatever, but if you just stand head-to-head with him, the advantage will be all yours.

Gouken

Ryu Matchup Thread

Ryu vs Gouken

This matchup isn’t really that bad maybe even in ryu’s favor.

Do not jump … except as a rare mixup. cr. FP will beat any and all jump in attempts.

He has better fireball recovery but at full screen you can actually kind of keep up with him. I know it’s odd, but i think it’s because he can’t throw another one until the first one dissapears.

Midscreen don’t throw fireball unless you are throwing one in response to him throwing one, as he’ll EX dash through it and that shit hurts. It’s good to do this though as it builds meter and that’s important to ryu.

To get in just Focus through the fireballs and mix up sweeps (or cr. MK), releasing the focus, supering through fireball, SRK FADC and throwing to get in. Remember you can hit his out stretched arm during a fireball for a crumple combo with a focus attack. You can’t evade his fireballs with hurricane kick.

Really once you get inside cr. MK range the matchup is really in your favor. If you can get him cornered he can EX Demon, but you can dp him (deep don’t do it early or you’ll go through him) through the kick but watch for the parry which you can punish when he lands.

If he tries to poke into fireball you mix in focus attacks to crush him, and SRK FADC. If you block a dp you can shoryu FADC it.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Gouken isn’t bad he’s like sagat but without the scary ass anti-air options. Need a 3s mindset when jumping though. Respect the parry but unlike 3s … You can punish him for attempting it.

If he plays zoning gouken (the only type imo) I reccomend trying to build a bit of ultra meter before approaching him, really made me see the matchup a lot differently as his fireballs aren’t like Sagat’s as he doesn’t have a 2 hit fireball and his fireballs are slow. Approaching him with a half powered ultra without taking any real dmg isn’t good for gouken.

Fireball from 3/4th’s + of the screen or else eat a DP from him. Other option is fireball his fireball on reaction to build meter safely, if he tries to dp you’ll block in time.

Getting in is the tough part as his sonic boom like recovery makes it hard to get in. You need to learn how he’s going to anti-air you when you jump. He wants to use cr. FP as it’s his most reliable anti-air, but if jumped correctly you can beat it with j. FP or FK as it comes out kinda slow (if it does come out though your going to lose). If he gets stuffed he’ll probably attempt a counter or try a more situational anti-air like cr. MK or st. MK. These are kinda mind gamey as j. FP and FK can win based on spacing against the MK’s, and empty jump allows a good punish of the counter (i recommend land immediate dp cancel).

A way to get in besides that is EX Fireballs (if he ever EX fireballs do yours for a knockdown, his ex fireballs are terrible), right outside of where his fireball appears can be done on reaction to get a knockdown (and this is your ultimate goal as after a knockdown you own the match). FA’ing Fireballs you have to be careful as if you dash forward at certain ranges he can actually punish the dash with a sweep … ya i was very frustrated when i found that out. But if your closer you can FA it than dash forward dp cancel, sweep, or cr. MKxxfireball (ex if the cr. MK hits cuz you WANT a knockdown).

Really once you get a knockdown if you can corner gouken, the matchup is very in your favor. He’s forced to guess his way out of the corner, he can’t jump out as you have dp ultra waiting, he can’t poke you very well as cr. MK is his daddy. closeup pressure really his only anwser is guess counter which if done incorrectly means lots of dmg done to him and resetting him into the same scenario.’

If he demon flips just j. attack him in some way than since you recover first upon landing mix him up (if he parries you still recover first it’s funny i know).

Ryu Matchup Thread

Gouken is kinda wierd, but i believe you can do it…
cross up’s aren’t always the best thing to do after knock downs. try getting in his face after a knock down, so he can get pressured into doing something stupid. (like wake up throw, which you can punish)

bait his ex counter, by an late empty cross up into throw, or bait his counter.

Add throws into the mix up so it opens him up for attacks.

• example:* cross over mk - cr. lp - cr. lp - walk throw
  cross over mk - cr. lp - walk throw
  empty cross up - cr. lp - throw
  empty cross up - throw

sooner or later he’s gonna think that your going to throw him, at that time dp - fadc - ultra and punish him for thinking that. get back to me if you need more help.

Ryu Matchup Thread

1. Don’t just mindlessly jump in. Time your jumps when he is expecting something else, and then DO NOT just jump in with an attack…A good Gouken will perform high parry…so mixup between an empty jump -> throw, and empty jump -> low attack.

2. Ryu can out fireball him…if he is going to turtle and just hurl fireballs…show him why its not in his best interest…absorb his fireballs to build your Ultra…that is a good deterrant.

3. Bait his dashing elbow attack with a jump straight up, punish when he whiffs.

4. If you can get right in his face, he has very little answer for that except a parry (which is just guesswork…so mix up your attacks) or his Ultra…do NOT get in his face when he has his Ultra.

5. Jumping tatsu, performed on the rise of the jump will carry you over his 45 deg fireball.

Ryu Matchup Thread

First calm down, and just know that Ryu has all the necessary tools to beat Gouken, pretty handily I might add.

First off you should never be jumping in on a shoto period, unless its a cross up or proven-safe scenario. (Gouken is a pseudo shoto IMO) Make use of your dash and simply walk forward. If you bulldog him there’s little he’s likely to do. Your hadou’s will always beat his, especially when they’re considering to go into a fireball war with you. Which brings me to my next point: Zoning with hadou’s at long range.

This should always be an option when encountering a new character type. Gouken’s palm strike (his version of the DP that moves horizontally) will often be their means to get through your fireballs. If you block or if it wiffs its VERY punishable, so do that. Same with his flying tatsu.

At close range, work your block strings and always be handy to tech. Getting thrown by a Gouken is a perfect way into his EX tatsu or even ultra.

Be patient. With meter your fireball zoning will be dangerous, and there’s really NOTHING he can do to you if he doesn’t approach you. Frustrate him, make him come to you. He will make a mistake, and your job is to punish.

Good luck.

Guile

When you trade projectiles, you can SRK FADC his poke and fuck him up. If you miss oh well, he can’t do shit.

Just whore out your risk/reward factors but be smart about it. He can’t guess correctly for long.

edit: Focus absorb a sonic boom and dash up and mix him up with grab or shoryu FADC ultra.

Quick note on guile - if you block the first hit of his c.hk, and are at anywhere but his max range, you can sweep him before the second hit. It’s not hard to do this on reaction, and you can completely discourage guile from sweeping. The timing is pretty tight though, so it’s worth getting a feel for.

Hurricane kick is a pretty bad answer vs. Guile. His recovery is so fast on his booms that you have to be SUPER psychic for it to actually connect. More often than not you are going to be punished.

Unfortunately if you’re playing a good Guile it’s going to be VERY hard to get in on him. You can throw hadou’s faster than he can throw booms. Do that. Patience is very important.

Huricane kick is good only if you see your opponment throwin FP sonic.
You can t punish the LP sonic with huricane kick. strong guile player know this so …

just as every one say. it s a patience game just hado to try to make cheap damage.
you can punish his sweep on guard between the first and second hit with shoryu ( fadc ultra…)

you can also try to pressur him till geting him to the corner and then ex hado to counter his sonic boum( then ultra)

it s an hard fight but ryu have some tools.
guile game will be to avoid cheap damage, ex sonic boum to make you cheap damage and punsh you when you are impatient.
he can sonic boum at mid distance and punish you with a FP if you hado at the same moment due o recorvery. so be smart at mid distance( ex hado, or fa dash bach.)

I would not rely on a hurricane kick for guile. Be patient and poke the heck out of him. Use the tried and true low medium kick firefall cancel. He will block but, you will be serving chip damage. Ive always done better with this while keeping guile out of the corner. If he stays there you cannot cross him up and you can really only attack in one direction, you can’t jump because you will get punished.

The player will get frustrated and if the pressure is good and heavy will wiff a flip kick. Then you can punish. Always use safe jumps!!!

If you cross him up pretty deep he can’t Flash Kick on wakeup. Well, he can but he gets stuffed clean, that’s one of Guile’s big weaknesses in this game.

Old School SFII logic says anybody sweeping with Guile enough for you to notice isn’t playing him right. He should be using more low forward as the sweep is SO PUNISHABLE and always has been. In the old games you can block and sweep him back, you might also be able to backdash and do something if you anticipate it.

As far as the matchup in general, try to get a lead and make him come to you. Any random SRK you can hit is free damage into Ultra or Super. Also remember that Guile charges in down back a lot so you can overhead him more than most characters. (If he’s not expecting it/not charged for Flash Kick after a boom etc)

It depends on your style. I play turtle style so I would just match and hop his booms, get super and try to bait him.

Ryu Matchup Thread

As for Guile. Like another poster said ALWAYS punish his cr. hk. Block the first one, then in between the 2 hits you can pretty much do whatever you want. I usually just HP SRK in the face, or if I have meters I’ll SRK, FADC, Ultra. Getting the knockdown allows for your crossup game to take over. Don’t ever jump in on him unless it’s for a crossup. All Guile players spend the whole time just waiting for you to jump so they can flash kick. Don’t do it. Make him come to you. If he wants to stay back and throw booms just have a fireball war. Guile can’t win a fireball war with Ryu. When you are up close he will pretty much always be crouching so that his attacks are charged. Collarbone breakers work very well as a mix up to hit him while he’s crouch blocking. It’s safer than trying to get close enough to throw because you will get hit before you get that close, but forward + mp has pretty good range that can catch him off guard. Good luck.

Ken

If he’s spamming DPs like crazy then the match-up should be extremely easy . You probably need to improve your reaction time. If he’s spamming reversal DPs, there are three main things you can do:

1. On knockdown, bait DPs by standing next to him (but outside of his throw range).

2. Time your cross-ups so Ken’s DP’s whiff if he attempts a reversal. It results in a free grab or combo every time.

3. Hold d/b or back, and time your attacks so if he does decide to reversal, you’ll be blocking, and if he doesn’t your attack will come out.

ken is a really easy match
all that you should be worried about is his kara throw mixups
but outside of his jab range your winning this match

Yeah the best option is to just zone with hadouken and force him to jump into a Shoryuken.
Poke him with the Cr.Mid kick into Ex hadouken…
Then when you have him set to jump Lp.Shoryuken him in the air and break into a Ultra.

Ryu Matchup Thread

On ryu vs ken…

Don’t be afraid to block. Most kens know that the fierce shoryuken is a monster and will want to land it. Quite often they’ll try to do reversal fierce SRKs on wakeup or while you’re comboing them (in case you slip on the combo)

First, you need a combo to punish the srk each and every time. Just pick a combo you like well and can do consistently and make that your “whiffed SRK punishment combo.” I like j.rh > c.mk xx mk hurricane kick; it does decent damage and hitting them with the hurricane kick pushes them back. (If you have godly timing you can do some ridiculous linking shit like j.rh > c.mp > c.mp > c.mk xx hp hadouken. I am not good enough to get off that crazy 2 frame link shit consistently. Failure to link when you meant to often means you will eat a random DP reversal, so it’s important to be CONSISTENT!)

A lot of kens seem to have trouble with safe jumping… a lot of the time if you safe jump them on their wakeup they will take the bait and reversal fierce srk. (or even ultra!) Bait it, block it, punish it, repeat.

I don’t suggest using meaty attacks against them, except for maybe fireballs, as they’ll almost always make you eat some part of a fierce srk for trying it.

If they’re a good Ken they’ll be mixing in kara throws and not taking the bait and fierce srking every 10 seconds… then it gets interesting. Ken’s game is up-close so make sure you keep him at bay by using your fireballs well. Try to predict when his throws are coming and either tech, or if you’re feeling really sure (or really cocky) make him eat a DP.

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

M. Bison (Vega/Dictator)

With M. Bison it is possible to FADC his head press and catch him with a SRK + EX Fireball or Ultra. If you get hit with the Splash more than likely he’s going to follow up with a crouching kick. You can also catch his Psycho crusher with a shoryuken. Once you get the knock down it’s a good idea to cross him up and go for the combo.

You shouldn’t be losing to head stomp spam. Neutral jump FP takes care of it and does a nice chunk of damage. If they are across the screen, get ready for a neutral jump. If you jump and swing and they devil reverse, get ready to FP shoryu. Don’t throw it out like a madman of course, but if they come in for you, be rocking the controller in that uppercut motion. Soon as you are sure they are coming in, tag that FP and let them taste the dragon.

This doesn’t give you a free pass on bison as his ground game is incredible as well, but it’s a start. Another thing you can do for head stomp is a backdash. He’ll land on the floor and you can punish him severely. Backdash and focus attack, then follow up with a nasty combo. If you can land a couple backdash-combos on him, he’ll think twice before headstomping again. Though he’ll still be free to devil’s reverse at whim and collect super meter at full screen.

I’m a bison player, and here’s a few tidbits:

bison’s air game is absolutely horrible against ryu. Walking, neutral j.hk, and FADC backwards all beat head stomp clean. Note I said FADC, not FA and then eat the skull diver follow-up. Worse comes to worst, a last second lp srk trades with stomp. Devil’s reverse mix ups can be srk’ed on reaction. Once ryu has ultra meter, bison basically can’t jump anymore in fear of eating srk -> ultra.

bison doesn’t have a real answer for ryu’s c.mk. It out-prioritizes and/or out-ranges all of bison’s normal pokes except for s.mk, which has to be spaced EXTREMELY well. Bison can’t pressure ryu that hard either because of reversal lp srk, which takes a big chunk out of his game, as he’s obviously a pressure character.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Ok here is a super secret tip on how to deal with Bison headstomp. Keep the information secret! ;):nunchuck:

When Bison does his headstomp, simply do a vertical jump and FP. Thats it. Don’t bother jumping back because you may trade, don’t jump forward cause you’ll lose, don’t Shoryuken cause you will get beat out, don’t do any other type of anti air move.

Simple vertical jump and FP and thats game. Try it, you’ll be amazed. You’ll shut him down completely when he does the headstomp.

The reason why it works so well is because the hitbox for the headstomp is Bison’s feat. If you hit his feet with a jump RH or Shoryuken you’ll lose out. The veritcal jumping FP hit box is high enough that it will hit Bison’s face and not his legs which is key. Best of all, Ryu’s arm is long enough that you’ll keep him at bay before he can touch you.

Ryu Matchup Thread

I’ve got a very helpful tip that I’ve been using against Bison players to discourage them from using his head stomp. It also works out that you can block the devil’s reverse.

Fullscreen-(Mickey D’s range of 5 and 4) Headstomp/Devil’s Reverse : You’ll want to throw out the [f.HP] Solar Plexus Strike and you’ll make Ryu’s attack whiff. But his body will move forward and make his head stomp whiff as well. You’ll recover faster and be able to throw out your favorite BnB.

Midscreen- (Mickey D’s range of 3, 2, and 1) Headstomp/Devil’s Reverse : You’ll want to throw out the [f.MP] Collar Bone Breaker because it recovers faster (If you do decide to throw out SPS, you’ll want to block but at least you won’t take chip/get hit)

Proven tactic, messes up Bison’s back charge, and it can EASILY change the swing of the match.

BTW, both of these can recover fast enough to block the Devil’s Reverse.

:rock:

against headstomp, just dash back. you get free combo. or neutral jump up hk. j. hk is generally the better idea of the 2 because most people don’t really go for the stomp. they go for the fake stomp. and if they come back at you with the followup, you can lp dp. but if they run away, then don’t dp.

against scissorkick, s.mp stuffs it. so like if you do c.mk into fireball, and they like to scissor kick you after, s.mp after your fireball should stuff it almost everytime depending on range. for most ranges, i believe it should stuff it, it worked for me? make them afraid to scissor kick you after your fireball, that way you can pressure them easier.

i’m not gonna go into more detailed stuff unless someone asks for it.

Rose

Her soul spirals havea min’ of -4 and a max of -8 frame adv. on block. You can throw a poke out after blocking it, but you need to be fast. If youre facing that samecombo a lot, it might be worth using a neutral jump to stuff, or try psyche DPs - though they are risky, of course.

Her throws come out at 3 frames - the same as Ryu’s.

I usually wait to counter the soul spiral when it hits deep (I think that’s the right terminology), what I mean to say is that she doesn’t just barely hit you with it and you are fairly close to her when she finishes her move. Crossing her up also works well and she has a worse fireball than Ryu, so you should be able to force her to move by using those.

Rufus

Ryu Matchup Thread

1rst is that when your in corner, your always in threat of ez ultra. so try and block more until he pushes himself out of range to do anything.

if he’s not “meaty-ing” the cross up, you can focus-back-dash out of it for saftey

watch if he does the cross up early or late, early you can dp out of it. Late gives him frame advantage and he can do anything he wants after, BUT he know puts himself in corner for you to put pressure on him.

i almost ALWAYS try to build 2meters for an occasion where i will have to wake up srk-fadc for safe wake up purposes. If the dp srk hits, i can ultra, if not, then i can safely wake up.

hope i helped you, gl to ryu’s!

Ryu Matchup Thread

My experience with Rufus’ is they love to spam Falcon Kick a lot which you can punish with a DP. If your reflexes are good you can also interrupt the final hit of the Messiah Kick with a DP, great for FADC into Ultra if you have it. Other then that, maybe watch that GameStop tourney vid between Daigo and Justin. Daigo pretty much plays a perfect match against Justin’s Rufus, which is the best Rufus I have seen yet.

From afar you should zone, build meter, and occasionally land chip dmg with fireballs. Rufus will either jump over them (neutral or forward into dive, baiting DP) or do a MP Snake Strike over them to get some meter. From around midscreen you should be careful with fireballs, cause Galactic Tornado will punish you (if he does it on reaction to your FB and from around its max range, you will often be recovered to meet it with a DP). Also, be aware that his J.HP has quite good reach. I like to play this from midscreen: poking, while watching and baiting for dives and Messiah’s.
Shutting down the dive kick practically cancels Rufus’ game. He has 2 main ways to get in: the dive and the roll (this can’t go under fireballs, btw). The roll is safe on block, but can be DP’ed on reaction. You can usually also DP after blocking it, because Rufus will go for a throw, triangle-jump dive or a blockstring in 99% of the situations after a roll. Unless you condition him to block after it with a few DPs. The dive kick is his main weapon. Watch for it, anticipate it. Good Rufus players WILL bait DP’s a lot with neutral jumps, late dives on the way down or close to the ground triangle dives. Varying the height of the dive in order to bait is one of his main mind game tricks. So in certain distances you will want to buffer the DP but only commit (press the punch button) if you see him diving from the high spot towards you. You should also understand his options after a blocked dive. He will either through, do another dive (usually very fast triangle dive), especially if you are conditioned into teching, or go for a block string. So you might want to through the occasional DP after blocking a dive kick in order to shatter his confidence. The high dive kick can also cross (but will not combo afterwards, except in certain situations when you are crouching).
Rufus is especially dangerous in the corner, where his dive mix-up game is at his best. The best you can do is to get out of there at the first possibility. He can also connect ultra in the corner from anything - Tornado, Snake Strike, Messiah, f+HP.
If you score a knockdown, you can pretty much cross-up at will if he does not have meter. Rufus has a great reversal - the EX Messiah Kick, but it is hard to land more than one hit of it (20 dmg, so it is a good trade - you are hit for 20, but they lose 1 EX) when being crossed. So considering this risk/reward factor I often cross even if he has EX. Generally, try to bait the EX Messiah on their wake up, to waste their meter. That will not be hard, cause it is his main wake-up / panic move.
From around midscreen you can also occasionally jump with HK at him (don’t overuse it), aiming for a hit with the tip of the leg. Don’t do this if he has EX. EX Snake Strike is a GREAT anti-air, good traectory, invincibility and does 270 dmg. His other main anti-airs: S. HP and Cr.MP are situational, and not quite fast.
Once Rufus gains ultra you should be even more careful. He can land it from a ton of setups (even more than Ryu’s) and he WILL be looking to land it as it is quite a lot of dmg (515 when full). These include: - EX (or LK) Messiah, LK follow-up, FADC, Ultra (so watch out when mixing him up after a KD or when poking, moreso if he has 3 EX) - air to air J.HK, land, ultra (you will notice Rufus players jumping in a lot with HK, looking to meet you in the air, once they have ultra) - target combo (LK-HK, 4 frames startup), Ultra (most often as a punish or after a dive hits you) - S.HK, Ultra (kinda hard to land on aware opponents, but still watch out for it) - the setups in the corner mentioned above (you should not be there, anyway) So it is up to you to be aware of these.
Some other notes: - if you block a Messiah Kick (including EX), you can DP before the followup (or simply punish if there is no followup). The only followup that combos from a hitting Messiah is the LK, the others can be DPed. - his main dmg (and punish) combo is s.HP-HP Tornado (260 dmg). You will often encounter it in the form Dive, LK, HP xx HP Tornado if they don’t have ultra (otherwise it is Dive, LK-HK, ultra; btw, the HK won’t connect if you are crouching). Note that LK, HP is one frame link, so you can attempt a DP after the LK - if you are being hit, you will reversal out of it if they screw it up. Also, if you block the HP, you will usually be out of block stun and you can DP before the HP Tornado (unless it is a perfect cancel, and considering you are not pushed too far away from blocking the start of the combo). Even if it is a perfect cancel, you can still try to reversal, you will not be hit by the Tornado as you will still be in blockstun.

very nice writeup scourge. you pretty much covered almost everything. i will add that in ryu vs. rufus, watch out for ex messiah more often than not. it’s rufus’s best desperation move and it WILL hit if you aren’t lookin out for it. just watch out for dive kick. lp dp is generally the way to go to punish if you aren’t 100% sure they are doing dive kick on you from a jump, because rufus can bait by jumping back and doing dive kick fast, fp dp allows more time for rufus to land big damage combo on whiff and lp won’t trade(from my experience it doesn’t trade).

rufus just has a lot of mixups coming from his dive kick. it really IS just guessing after he does a dive kick. so try to eliminate that option if possible. and if he DOES start his divekick shenanigans, then try to guess right? i’m sorry if you were looking for a better answer than “guess” right, but that really IS what you have to do.

but scourge’s writeup is pretty much the bible against rufus.

as far as character matchups are concerned, there’s so many different ways to fight the character, but you should try to fight the player. all these tips are simply “guidelines”, the rest of the matchup, you should try to read the player, find habits, etc and exploit it and adapt.

sorry i’ve been away for a while, i’m gonna come back with some videos for you guys soon and some more writeups with some really good stuff.

Ryu

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

Sagat

This is kind of interesting, I see that a lot of people are having trouble with Sagat matchups, however I don’t feel as if I have had trouble with this match since the beginning of the game. All in all, I could go into detail with things, but I’ll just write my main ideas concerning this matchup.

From full screen, terracotta nailed it on the head. It’s a fireball war until someone gets impatient and tries to advance. Don’t let this be you. Neutral jump over low tigers, and crouch under high tigers. The occasional SA to eat a shot is pretty good too. Make sure you don’t eat 2 in a row, mainly because you don’t want to even risk losing 3 shots worth of life when you didn’t have to. The reason why SA’ing 1 shot is good is because it kinda fucks with the opponent’s mind. It gives him the impression that YOU are capitalizing from something that HE is doing. Other than that, wait it out, and let Sagat come to you. He moves like a sack of bricks and has to do some pretty unsafe things to close distance to you (jump is slow, whiff tiger knee can be punished with a c.hk, dash is to slow, etc.). Point of the matter is, do NOT get into a fireball war with Sagat. Build meter by jumping back and whiffing hurricane kick, and avoid his tiger shots, get the opponent in the mindset that what he is doing is NOT working.

From mid screen, it can get kind of messy, whoever can conquer the mid screen battle, gets the knockdown. At this point Sagat is just WAITING to try and tiger knee you at a safe distance so that he can get in on you and pressure you. Personally, I keep my guard up from this range mainly because I don’t want to give him any chance to get in my face. Sending out a poke with Ryu is risking a situation where Sagat can knockdown, so I would suggest poking VERY rarely and conservatively. If I were to send any poke, it would be an EX fireball…this is a good move mainly because if Sagat blocks it, it pushes him away from you, so you get more breathing room. If it hits, well you get the knockdown. Lastly, a very nicely timed jump at this range can mean great things right here. Sagat is not a patient character, especially at this range, he’s either looking to poke into a string, or he’s looking to close the distance on you. When he’s in this mindset, its your turn to jump…do it when you are at c.mk range so that Sagat doesn’t have much time to think about anti airing you.

Close up…if Sagat does get in on you, the best suggestion that I could give is to just block. Block everything that Sagat has to give. I would MUCH rather take an overhead or throw then to be comboed for a lot of damage. You are going to want to make the Sagat player think that you are VERY firm on blocking his strings…at this point, he knows that his only option is to throw…so just keep an eye out for it and be ready to tech. Try not to get crossed up from close ranges too (example: c.lk, c.lk, jump over with lk, land repeat). Learn how to look for it, and when it happens, jump back hk him in his face. The point of the matter is that you KNOW that Sagat is going for mad pressure at this range…he’s going to be trying to lock you down no matter what. So take that option away from him, and remain blocking…watch for throw attempts and tech. Once Sagat locks you down for a while, I’m sure that there will be patterns or even mistakes in between the strings, learn to look for these and choose a safe way to stop the string…the safest being SRK, SADC.

I disagree in spamming fireballs vs Sagat.

You can always advance on a Sagat player.

A high fire baller you will need to just duck and advance, a low fire baller use the hurricane kick to advance.

On the ground and at mid distance, Ryu has the advantage. In fact, Ryu’s sweep is longer range than Sagat’s just by a bit. At mid distance if your timing and luck are just about right it’s a 50/50 against his fireball as you decide to duck low to avoid then retaliate with your own fast hadoken or if it is low and you retaliate with a mid hurricane kick.

Play defensive cause most will try to follow up with a tiger knee if you decide to advance more.

Knowing your sweep distance vs. Sagats is important. You should try to avoid jumping in against Sagat as he has the advantage there.

It’s all about zoning so just remember that while Sagat looks bigger and logically should have better reach with his limbs, it’s just not true on low ground and this is your biggest advantage.

Sagat vs Ryu: Hard match-up for Ryu or anyone for that matter. Just have to get in on him and don’t get caught in the fire ball war because Sagat WILL win that.

Ryu Matchup Thread

okay… in a nutshell, i really hate this match. that’s pretty much the reason i started this thread. this is pretty much my impression of the match at the moment. hopefully someone can point out a really obvious tactic i’ve managed to overlook.

long range
in my experience fighting Sagat isn’t so bad from afar as it is up close, because up close is when he has 6 billion ways to link into Ultra. fighting from afar, however, means fighting the fireball war, which Sagat is easily better equipped for. some notes:

• Sagat simply throws fireballs out at a greater rate, so Ryu will have to jump eventually. it’s inevitable, but it’s not a loss. Ryu should be jumping straight up, or forward then immediately back, just to reset the pace.
• some players just instinctively jump when they see Sagat crouch and yell “Tiger!” - only to realize it was a slow tiger shot and fall right into it. short air hurricane kick was great in previous games for dodging these but it doesn’t change Ryu’s jump trajectory very much, so Ryu can’t rely on it.
• haven’t tested thoroughly but short hurricane kick goes through low tiger shots; not sure if it’s just the startup or the whole thing.

point is Ryu can dodge projectiles reasonably well from full screen away, at least much more easily than Sagat can. Sagat’s jump is low, his dash is short, and he doesn’t walk all that fast; for the most part he has to jump over fireballs. to get close to Ryu with f+HK xx tiger knee, the screen has to be clear of projectiles.

the game seems to be one of building a solid lead over Sagat and staying the fuck away from him and that damned Ultra. he will pelt Ryu with tiger shots, to which Ryu must respond with fireball / block / jump / FADC in various combinations. Ryu can block, but imho he should be dodging these high/low slow/fast tiger shots by keeping his eyes peeled; first to preserve Ryu’s lead, and second to show Sagat you’re not gonna just sit and take block damage, which should persuade him to come and get you.

midscreen
"is he gonna jump or fireball?" guessing game - obviously it’s about jumping him when he throws a fireball, and faking fireballs to DP his jump. it’s also about hitting whiffed limbs. this sub-game is old as SF2, but EX fireballs, FADC and Ryu’s awesome c.MK create subtle little differences (and unlike ST/HF, SF4 Ryu can’t cancel c.HK).

Ryu NEEDS to be able to WALK UP c.MK xx hadoken without a hitch in this match. this can be a challenge for people who haven’t practiced it because walk up c.MK xx hadoken can easily result in walk up c.MK xx shoryuken. the trick is to hold the down position a little before attempting the qcf motion; thankfully c.MK is much more lenient in this game (seems to have more cancellable frames). Sagat’s anti-air game is very strong, so this is one of Ryu’s few ways in. Ryu also needs to be able to DP every jump, but that goes without saying.

• Sagat will occassionally FA from far in anticipation of your jump (or just to bait a reaction), but Ryu can hit with the tip of c.MK without risk (into hadoken to break armor). hurricane kick breaks armor, but forget about it.

• Sagat can jump over the hadoken if Ryu tries c.MK xx hadoken from max c.MK range; if you see Sagat likes to do this, hit c.MK and don’t fireball, then uppercut when he jumps.

• i noticed that if Sagat tries to jump over a fireball late from 3/4 screen away, and Ryu walks up to try to c.MK him when he lands, Sagat’s j.HK doesn’t seem to reach Ryu - actually the j.HK seems to remove Sagat’s trip guard, causing him to eat the c.MK xx hadoken.

• i find jumping straight up can mess with a Sagat player’s head, simply because it’s harder to tell what comes next (in comparison to a Ryu that sits down and whiffs jab all the time). Ryu’s vertical jumping roundhouse is great air-to-air against Sagat too.

again i’d say it’s all about building a lead over Sagat, then playing it safe - i don’t mean getting a 20% lead midscreen then suddenly running away, but Ryu shouldn’t be taking any unnecessary risks. but that means not giving anything away either - a lead isn’t a reason to suddenly block or FADC Sagat’s jump ins when you DPed his jumps 3/3 times before.

Ryu Matchup Thread

This is my be the match up I have the more palyed in this game
Plus against some good sagat( master grade or more…)
I was basically alway loosing against strong and solid sagt player. I had no way to win then I hade two things

first one, 3/4 screen I do some random huricane kick at the start of the mach when I feel it s gona be a low tiger shot( do it at the start of the mach, not onc they can tigger uppercut sa ultra…)

if it s a low tiger shot then you will punish if it s hight then you will make him fell like don t shoot low tiger shot.

then one He get afraid and start doing hight tiger shot I just go under and then close the distance and lend an hado just as soon as the tiger shot pass up my head. If he jum forward you have time to shoryu. if he doesn t jump then you just make him feel like he is gona loose at this game because you touch him in gard and he can t touch you or he have o lend low tiger shot…

With just this you kind of breack is way of playing And he might try sonme jump or do some mistake.

He he still do low tiger shot, you can randomly huricane kick as damage frone huricane kick are may be 2 or 3 time mre than tiger shot and plus if you touch then you can capitalyse the wake up game to make some more damage.

that not a lot but for me that changed all the game and now even againt master grade I m no more affraid of this mach up…

Ryu Matchup Thread

Ryu NEEDS to be able to WALK UP c.MK xx hadoken without a hitch in this match. this can be a challenge for people who haven’t practiced it because walk up c.MK xx hadoken can easily result in walk up c.MK xx shoryuken. the trick is to hold the down position a little before attempting the qcf motion; thankfully c.MK is much more lenient in this game (seems to have more cancellable frames)."

Ryu Matchup Thread

i was watching this Ryu who literally learned to fight Sagat in the space of ~10 games. some things he did:

• he stayed just outside tiger knee range. Sagat can almost poke with tiger knee, so if you can bait it by sitting outside that range you can punish with c.MK xx EX hadoken. outside tiger knee range is also the range where Sagat’s less reluctant to throw shots because Ryu is just one jump away. at the same time Ryu’s much, much more mobile - he can walk up to Sagat faster than Sagat can retreat (e.g. to poke with low forward) and he can “hover” in and out of Sagat’s tiger knee range, whereas Sagat’s (lack of) walking speed hinders him a bit.

• when Sagat starts his c.LK c.LK c.LK hit confirms (to go into c.MK xx tiger knee or tiger upper), you can FADC the c.MK or just back dash (tap db db). on blocking the tiger knee, for most sensible follow ups Sagat has (c.MK xx tiger knee, c.MK xx low tiger), Ryu can FADC into back dash to make room.

• low fierce for anti-air. i don’t completely agree with it, but i thought about it… and it did several things. (1) it hammers into Sagat’s head that he can’t jump on you, simply because you won’t be screwing up some DP motion. this can be good or bad, e.g. give me 2 stocks and i’d prefer Sagat to jump. (2) when you’re resolved to hit low fierce instead of a DP, you can concentrate more on finding opportunities (to jump) instead of looking for threats (checking to see if they’re jumping).

Ryu Matchup Thread

lol ryu’s super punishes almost anything negative on block. It punishes all sweep kicks. It’s easily the best super in the game, now it just should deal enough dmg that i would prefer super over ultra and srk cancels.

Sagat match
Things i’ve found
Fullscreen
If he’s doing low tigers the fireball war is pretty even just jump every now and than to reset it and you can do this all day. However, probably want to be a bit more productive so make sure to absorb 1 or 2 tigers (if i absorb 2 i turtle until i get the life back, only throwing hadoukens on reaction to his own to i don’t get hit by a random EX). Having an ultra without losing much life really makes this matchup easier so most sagat’s will try to move within at least the mid-range or right outside it so they can pressure you better to prevent this.
High Tigers just recover far faster than your fireballs and will quickly end any concept of fighting a fireball war as to keep up you’ll have to burn meter and if he EX’s you risk getting knocked down and pressured.
Midscreen
This is where the matchups start getting interesting. Firstly, your goal here should be to abuse walking cr. MK as it’s your ONLY weapon against st. HK and even than it’s inconsistant. I like to mix in some hadoukens if i notice he’s not interested in jumping, if he is i keep to using cr. MK.
St. LK is another poke you have to worry about at this range as it’s not punishable on whiff (on reaction), and has as much if not more range than your cr. MK and results in you eating an EX tiger afterwards to just throw you across the screen and force you to play a fireball game war that if you have less life you really have to play.

cr. MK and his st. HK have the same startup though so if you get hit by it randomly just remember it’s not u messing up the move’s just f’ing retarded. (venting)

Tigerknee isn’t a huge issue as the ONLY pokes you should use at this range are fireball and cr. MK and unless you get one of those freak scenarios where his knee goes over your fireball (it happens when he uses the RH at certain times) than it shouldn’t hit you. cr. MK will actually go under it and allow you to punish with cr. FPxxFP ShoryuxxFADC>Ultra, or cr. MP, cr. FPxx Tatsu or Shoryu
Close Range Defense
I actually like upclose sagat compared to mid-range sagat as even though this is where he has his big dmg combo’s simply having good reaction times and playing smart does a lot here.
He’ll use a lot of cr. LK … Tigerknee, this is actually one of the few instances where your not just done for. cr. MK even on startup will go under Tigerknee if cancelled from a st. LK. Also a Shoryu after blocking a st. LK will hit him or trade with any followup he cancels into.
This is also if he doesn’t have ultra and you do it is probably worth sometimes trying to SRK between his lights if you have confidance in buffering your DP quickly.
Most of the time you just want to sit there and block. Learn when tigerknee is advantage and when it’s disadvantage and fight back accordingly and punish it if it’s ever done incorrectly.
His throws deal more dmg than the rest of the casts (why did they do this???) but a lot less than an ultra combo.
Wakeup backdashing will get you out of his lights and any wakeup throw (if you get out of a throw you can actually immediately srkxxultra to punish).

Close Range Offense
I don’t like this as I feel this is just to dangerous against Sagat. You mess up ONE time and you will lose 70% of your life and most likely the round. I normally just try to bait a lot unless i feel he isn’t very uppercut happy. One thing you can do to make it more difficult for you to be uppercutted is do a lot of cr. Jab and cr. FP (linked so there are holes during block stun but not if they hit, so he doesn’t have many frames to actually buffer the dp. Not surefire but it makes it harder). Also if he tries to throw or mash anything there should only be 1 to 2 frame gaps in between so he’ll get beat out.

The risk reward here if he has ultra just isn’t in your favor, so bait a lot if you want to play this way when he has ultra.

Air game
Srkxxultra him he gets hurt
he srkxxultra’s u, and you lose the damn round
moral don’t jump unless you just are SURE your getting that combo or your baiting the uppercut.
He’s still going to jump though as his stam and dmg in comparison to your dmg make the risk worth it for him, though it’s still very very risky and not in his favor.
Jumping forward sucks sooooo much in SFIV.

Learn to bait uppercut with crossup tatsu’s.

On wakeup i don’t reccomend going for the crossup unless your sure your safe jumping, and he has ultra just don’t do it. It’s not worth it.

Nuetral jumping is good though if he can’t hit you with an aerial as jumping HK will beat anything he jumps at you with. If he dashes forward you can normally hit him, and it just all around fucks with his head.

sagat is tough. but here’s the way that i manage to win if i can beat him.

sagat is all about spacing, zoning, fireballs, tigerknee. lol. most sagat’s will try to get you in a fireball war, cause they know sagat wins in the fireball war at least for the most part. so yeah, if they want it, give it to them. when the match first starts, you should just give it to them because you yourself need meter as well, and getting close to sagat at this point is hard cause pursuing a sagat is just hard to do in general. so step back and fireball.

fireball war:
duck under high tigers, after you duck it, IMMEDIATELY throw a hp fireball. and then throw another one after it.

jump over low tigers, if he does it fast, hurricane kick late, if the low tiger is SLOW, hurricane kick asap, preferably before the peak of the jump to come down slower, you can spot the speed of his fireball if you’re looking for it.

if he happened to do a fast high tiger and you jumped, hurricane kick asap, like on the way up, if he does a slow high tiger, don’t do anything and just land then duck it and throw your fireball immediately after. and toss out another one.

if he does nothing, hurricane kick really late on the way down to get that meter.

if he delays doing his fireballs cause you keep jumping over it, don’t do anything on the way down and jump when he throws the next one.

it’s a good idea to stop jumping and play the standard fireball way sometimes. because sagat is good at getting in closer than what is comfortable during fireball wars. he can always fast tiger, and then dash in to close distance and fireball again.

but the reason jumping and hurricane kick is better than your normal fireball war is that you’re gaining more meter than sagat is. hurricane kick gains meter faster than fireball. sagat will not like this.

it’s not good to STAY in a fireball war with sagat though. because sagat will eventually win it. he’s the one waiting for YOU to make the mistake. his fireballs are just too fast. and he has ways to close distance on you.

after you land from a hurricane kick, you can always mix it up and throw a fireball of your own. you don’t have to follow my flow chart. it’s actually BETTER to mix it up imo.

so what you wanna do is to try get some damage on him, but how do you do that? well, ryu lands most his damage up close, but it’s hellla hard to get in close, there’s a trick to it. what you do is inch in close, duck under high tigers, walk in and then BLOCK low tigers or anything he has to throw at you, keep pushing him back, your best poke right now is c.mk. c.mk lowers your hitbox to duck under his tiger knee. so keep inching in and using c.mk as your poke, it’ll beat most of sagat’s pokes and if he tiger knee’s, you’ll duck it and you get a free throw attempt(sagat can break it, but maybe he won’t :-)), you can also DP --> FADC, sometimes you’ll catch sagat pressin buttons after you ducked under his tiger knee. and you’ll hit him with DP. ok, now if this sagat is scrubby as hell and while you are inching in at him and he keeps throwing tigers at you to keep you back, just jump in. fuck it. good sagat players will be afraid to tiger you once you close a certain distance on him.

whatever you do, do NOT jump in on sagat to close distance, he will DP or s.hk you everytime, the only time you should ever jump is if you know his fireball patterns and you jump over his fireball. if you do, hit him with j.hp, st.fp/c.fp, dp. btw, you can’t jump over his tiger shots on reaction, you’ll get dp’ed everytime. so like i said, you HAVE to just KNOW when he’s gonna throw a fireball to even consider jumping in on him.

but keep inchin in, c.mk xx fireball is your best friend right now. the whole thing about inching in is that you have to be prepared to DP a jump-in EVERYTIME. watch for it, don’t let him jump in on you, it’s the only guaranteed free damage in this game(of course i don’t include like laggy moves). once you get him to the corner, KEEP him there, he has no good way to get out(except for maybe ex tigerknee but watch for that as well). you should stay at about jumping distance. if he jumps, dp, if he doesn’t, fireball. walk in, poke with c.mk xx fireball. toss out occassional ex fireball or whiff punish c.mk xx ex fireball, if you SEE that it’s gonna connect and you have ultra. do ultra.

now if he jumps over your random ex fireball on reaction or even a lil early, you can easily DP him. ex fireball recovers so fast. however if he jumps over your regular fireball, he’s most likely going to combo you, that’s why you should wait and chill on throwing fireballs. and make him think about what he should do, make him afraid of your pokes/walk speed and DP if he tries to jump.

now sagat players have certain patterns they follow, just like any other character. like after a blocked tiger knee. sagat can get c.lp xx fireball for free. but what some of you don’t know is there is a gap between c.lp and the fireball where you can reversal dp --> FADC --> ULTRA. if you KNOW your opponents sagat’s patterns, you can take advantage of this. but the sagat player i play against baits it nowadays and mixes it up.

so, let’s assume you have ultra, now what? sagat players start getting scared of fireball wars. you should try to distance yourself about little more than mid screen distance but if he throws a fireball, you can FADC through it, buffer your ultra, if he throws another fireball, press PPP. if he doesn’t, chill out and throw your own fireball or somethin.

if you throw a fireball and it meets his at the middle, dash in after that, buffer your ultra, if he throws another one, ultra. if not, throw a fireball, push him back to the corner if possible.

sagat cannot cross ryu up either. if he throws you or knocks you down and attempt a crossup, do ryu’s anti crossup dp. basically, you do the dp motion the regular way, and press P a little late and if you did it right, ryu will turn around and DP and hit a crossup sagat. this works on almost every character, i can’t get it to work against blanka’s crossup though. but if you have FADC and ultra, you get a free ultra after his attempted crossup. most players don’t expect you to know how to do this or just forget.

btw, in all my character matchups, i don’t like to include what to do once you knock him down, you should have your own stuff. your mixups or things that you like to do after a knockdown.

but that’s generally how i handle sagat. the rest of his matchup is knowing your opponent and how he plays. but this is what works best for me.

the whole part about not jumping in on sagat only applies to sagat’s that actually DP you. if you’re playing against someone who can’t dp everytime, abuse it. play against the player, not the character.

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

Sakura

Seth

Ryu Matchup Thread

Against Seth be wary of wall to wall jump overhead as he tries to cross you up.

Vega (Balrog/Claw)

no srks

focus the slash dash in and sweep
c.hp when he’s near it’ll beat out the slash and stop a grab (best option)
nj.hk
block

you basically have to pressure vega this whole match, fireball from full screen to make him wall dive. if he tries to dive at you instead of faking, you have a bunch of options. if you knock him down cross him up all day. if he tries to flip away tatsu or ex ball to punish
watch out for his kara throw

Use Focus Attack Against Vega’s wall dive. be ready to dash out of it if he was faking one.

Same principle with Bison’s headstomp…

Good luck

Ryu Matchup Thread

Against Vega’s wall dive, it can be a bit tougher.

Crouching Fierce works but you have time it right. I’ve also seen jump back roundhouse work too. Jab shoryuken should also work and if you have an ultra you can use it afterwards. The problem with some of these options is that vega can steer his wall dive to cross up and to go slightly upwards, so if you mistime your anti air wrong, he could izuna drop you instead after you whiff.

Also against the wall dive, you could charge a focus attack to absorb the hit, and release to do a level 2 FA. If he happens to cross you up with it, just absorb the hit and dash backwards (towards him) to throw.

Zangief

Quick Notes: Do NOT hadoken much from up close or half screen, this is just asking for Gief to jump over you and Ultra. The goal is to play Gief from half screen distance. Ryu needs to zone well by using c.mk. If Gief advances a little to much push him back by c.mk hadoken/ex hadoken. At this distance, Ryu’s best tool is to jump straight up and j.hk. It will make Gief whiff green hand and lariat, letting you push him back or possibly combo him. Lastly, ANTI AIR him EVERY chance you get. To do this, you need to be LOOKING for the anti air, I don’t think that having good reactions is just good enough, start LOOKING for those jumps to avoid Ultra’s.

From afar: Ryu’s only real option is to throw hadokens. Hadoken’s are NOT hard to get around with Gief. Gief can easily close the distances via SA’ing the hadoken and dashing in, Lariat’ing (not the best option), or green handing his way in. Jumping isn’t very good for Gief to cover ground because at this range, Ryu should be in position to Anti air with s.hk from afar. Because it’s so easy to anticipate Ryu’s hadoken’s from full screen, Gief is most likely going to be green handing your fire balls.

Up Close: This is a dangerous territory for both characters. It really depends who’s rushing who. If you’re rushing Gief down, you need to be very careful not to fall into an SPD during your strings. It’s real risky for Ryu to be doing the rushing because of this. However you CAN stand just out of SPD range and attack. If Zangief gets a knockdown, you’re in big trouble. Gief can easily do 20% worth of damage if you don’t make the right decision. Your options are very limited if you don’t have meter. You can either jump straight up in anticipation of a wake up SPD/tick into SPD, or you can block in anticipation of a combo. The best way to get rid of this gimmick, is to save your meter during the match. This way, once you’re knocked down, you can: hp srk, SADC back dash. This gets you completely out of trouble, and gives you another chance to play the match up from half screen distance.

Half Screen: This is where Ryu succeeds in the match. Ryu needs to make it a goal to be just shy of Green hand range for the majority of the match. Green hand is Gief’s ONLY good tool to get in on Ryu. By staying out of green hand range, you are able to punish on reaction, poke out at Gief with c.mk (to stop him from advancing into close up range), bait it by whiffing a couple c.lp’s, OR most preferably jump straight up and land with hk. One thing to know is it’s important not to throw to many hadokens as a good Gief will try to anticipate this and EX green hand you. Use hadokens from this range VERY conservatively.

Conclusion: This match is tough for Ryu because he’s limited to how much he can rush (the main way Ryu does damage). Stay about half screen distance of Gief in anticipation of green hand. Keep him in this distance by poking him and pushing him back.

Zangief vs Ryu : st.rh and cr.mk are your main pokes against him. If gief jumps in, do shoryu or st.rh. BE AWARE OF THE RANGE OF HIS EX GREEN HAND It is punishable on block. Don’t throw fireballs blindly from mid-screen.

Ryu Matchup Thread

if he does ppp lariat, you have to punish AFTER the 3rd spin… it seems like his 4rth spin has less or no priority over normals. I HIGHLY recommend whoring fireballs out until he can get into green hand range. From there you should bait out his g.hand and punish.

if your having a hard time AAing gief w/ s.RH, its because he’s doing 2 things:
1: throwing his hit box out earlier to hit your AA.
2: your spacing is to far to AA him w/ s.RH

i recommend (at a far distance) to just focus the attack and back dash. or deep srk to hit his hand on the jump in. (going off the fact that he might jump in w/ fierce)

Ryu Matchup Thread

i dont know if this has been posted, i didn’t read all 13 pages of posts.
Vs Gief
From Midscreen, ANY time you block or even eat a Green Fist (Banishing Flat) you have frame advantage so you can throw or uppercut everytime. This works EVERYTIME unless its a EX Green Fist.
Against lairiat happy players, bait the larriat with a slow fireball from 2/3’s and as soon as you see the lariat dash behind it and crouching low forward firebal him. You have to be fast but when you learn it, it makes Gief’s a lot easier.
If you see Gief trying to cross you up on wake up, neutral jump and combo, don’t let him nail those 360’s

Ryu Matchup Thread

Gief:

This. Plus, i like to jump straight up against gief every so often if he starts walking towards me in anticipation of the green hand. It will whiff and you can just j.mk > any combo of your choice (this will also stuff a lariat if he’s under you). Other than that, vary hadouken speed, throw out a lot of c.mk > hados/ex hado, and throw out a few standing and crouching jabs to confuse them. Don’t throw too many fireballs within ex green hand range or you’re going to regret it. If he keeps trying to jump in the match is yours, just shory > ultra etc.

Ryu Matchup Thread

Well in all honesty Lariat doesn’t kill crossups I do some cool crossup tatsu stuff on gief guz 100% of giefs lariat when they see me jump and about to land in front than boom i’m behind and get a free 80 dmg and if i have super it’s 350 or so. (Air hurricane>super buff combo i use it whenever i have the meter and need the dmg)

Well first thing you need to realize is your playing gief, so his dmg is coming from a guessing game of throw or don’t throw. Therefore you need to defend the same way, jump or block. Now that’s just a 50/50, but you have SRK (which will sadly lose to his ultra) and should mix this in and gief will be forced to guess block which guess what loses to jump away and if you srk on block than boom backdash your outta that shit. Giefs a monster upclose stay out of this position whenever possible.

Lot’s of people have problems with gief that don’t understand great footsies and baiting. Poke him with fireballs but also don’t let him jump on you, if he’s close use cr. MK or cr. MK fireball based on distance so that he can’t win on the ground easily either. Remember st. FK is a great anti-air in this match and tags him from farther than an srk will.

Gief is going to have to bait you into a predictable fireball to get in (as otherwise he shouldn’t be able to get past cr. MK range). So basically just play patient, stuff any attempt to move forward and otherwise … just sit there maybe move a bit forward every now and than to poke him with cr. MK but otherwise he can’t to much.

Also if he’s lariating with PPP to go through fireballs you can punish that shit … soooooo hard. Really just throw a light fireball and than walk forward and tag him with whatever, if he’s in the corner you can actually punish with ultra it’s hilarious. Don’t SRK his lariat as generall it will only give you the second hit (only 70 dmg), if your under it punish with cr. MK, RH Tatsu (than i always do a jump back RH which will punish lariat or command grab reversal) or if your farther away st. RH or cr. RH I find st. RH easier and more reliable but only do this when the very tip of your foot will peg his arm.

Ryu Matchup Thread

i’m def. not a pro, and maybe it’s just cause i haven’t played good 'giefs, but i haven’t lost to one in a long time.

i only do 3 things:
as soon as the match starts i immediately crouch block and then:

1. if he jumps at me, i do a cr. fp. sometimes i trade, but usually i win out
2. if he does green hand, i block and start spamming cr.RH. it always sweeps him.
3. if he starts walking forward i hit cr.mk and push him out

if he starts spamming lariat, i’ll inch up slowly until i’m in sweep range and just sweep him out of it and then go back to sitting just out of his grab range.

there are probably ways to maximize dmg like srk instead of cr. fr or a combo after the green hand, but i find that it’s easier just to stick to those 3 and i only have to worry about 3 buttons.

yeah, i could see how it would seem like a pretty boring match and induce a lot of rage quits, but the bottom line is i havne’t lost to a 'gief yet using this strategy.

maybe it’s cuase i’m only 2500 BP, and maybe good 'gief players use l. green hand (which might be safe on block) etc. but give it a shot and let me know if it works for you too.

i find that against a lot of the matchups that ppl seem to have trouble with ('gief, blanka, dictator, boxer) patience is key. i used to have trouble with them too, but now i just kind of sit and react and i fare a lot better. it’s a bit of a turtle strategy and scrubs will complain… but i have fun beating them, and when other players beat me, i feel like i always come away learning some strategy to add.

Ryu Matchup Thread

I would add a couple of things to that. Firstly, if he does the lariat, I jump in with fk to get a quick combo. Also, instead of sweeping after green hand id use a combo that ends with Tatsu. Reason for Tatsu is that it’ll buy a lot of space, and the last thing you want to do against Gief is get cornered. Would also agree - patience is the key. Sure, it might not be fun, but against Gief you have to make sure your safe at all times, otherwise you could get in one tight spot that will lead you to instant death.

@ryuhou
Most people consider Gief and Sagat harder to beat because you are required to completely change your playstyle and strategy, moreso against Gief.

Gief’s lariat isn’t even that dangerous unless you keep trying to jump at him in clear sight, which you shouldn’t be doing anyway. Just stay mid-ranged and hadoken, SRK him if he jumps at you or sneak up 2 inches and cHK him if he lariats.

Also, keep an eye on his super meter, if he can green glove, you should stop after 1 or 2 hadokens and do a neutral jump, if you catch him doing the greenglove, follow it up with a HK, cMK, Tatsumaki to put some distance between you and him again.

Also, if you do ever jump (hopefully only on crossups), stop your blockstring IMMEDIATELY as he can squeeze in a throw. So on a blocked crossup, jump away or dash out, do not throw, do not SRK, do not finish your block string… believe me, your 80-150 ‘possible’ damage isn’t worth a ~300 atomic buster.

Another thing you can do is hadoken from 3/4 distance of the screen, if he lariats, you can jump towards him and catch him with a jHK, back out of it afterwards tho, since he won’t be in range for a cHK.

If you ever get cornered, use a arial tatsumaki to get to the other side and play cat and mouse all over again, remember, you do not need to deplete his vitality meter to win… if you play it right, the chipping damage and frequent punishes should put your health above his and you CAN win by delaying the fight.

Gief is all about punishing his moves, you cannot play aggressive unless you know exactly what he can and cannot do in between your combos.

rex0r had a good point. take what he said and apply this…

fireball from mid to full screen. not as much mid screen. from this distance, just WAIT. gief cannot chip you if you block. if he has ex bar, do NOT fireball. he’ll knock you down and that’s when his mixups begin. gief’s pokes are like s.lp, s.mp, c.hk. just really stupid stuff, gief cannot hurt you if you are blocking and waiting. if he jumps, DP as fast as possible. watch out for his shortjump though. if he gets too close, jump away or c.mk xx fireball(should connect if you’re close enough, don’t do is at max c.mk distance). or you can even just c.mk. bait the ex green hand after c.mk. you basically have to become like a wall against gief. his best option is to ex green hand you and you can’t let that happen. just bait it, dp him after. dp him when he jumps. jump back, full screen fireballs, gain meter.

remember, he has NO moves that can chip you. his greenhand is completely punishable unless he FADC’s out of it. so just wait it out if you’re afraid of ex green hand. whiff punish his c.hk if he EVER tosses it out.

several gief setups to get in close:
s.hk(if ducked), SPD
dash in, SPD
ex green hand for knock down

those are the 3 main ways that i’ve pesonally seen.

but let’s say he does happen to knock you down and starts his spd mixup. if he crosses you up with a splash, he is most likely going to follow up with some sort of crouching light tick into spd. if he crosses you up with a lk, he’ll prolly just go straight into spd. so keep that in mind. learn to counter these whether it be with DP–>FADC, dashing back, jumping out. but keep in mind it still is 50/50 and you still have to guess, but knowing WHEN to guess is half the battle.

I know this is AKS216’s thread but i hope he doesn’t mind extra input because I really love this thread, it’s helped me out alot.

zangief is definitely not invincible.

Here are the 2 types of giefs I play. Lariat Spammer and Grab Geif.
Neither are fun to play against and you’ll almost always be bored in this match because you have to range and time your attacks.

Versus a spammer: I like to spam hadoukens in return. I usually vary the speed to catch him off guard so he will lariat too quickly and as it ends the hadouken will connect. as he moves in closer and closer wait for that opportunity to SRK him underneath the lariat(LP SRK). then you can try and play a smooth wakeup style which is dangerous because he can buffer the throws as hes getting up. so i suggest keeping your spacing. Overall you just have to keep your distance on this one because up close is the only place the Gief can do any work. I think you can crossup his lariats as well, but i can’t verify atm because my xbox is RRoD and I’m waiting on it to come back.

Versus a Grab Giefs: they are the ones that utilize the Focus attacks and then buffer the throw as it connects and then smash your head into the ground. what i suggest for this is toss out those hadoukens and if he begins to close in i usually will dash fwd and quickly back dash in order to bait him into trying to throw me or releasing the focus attack and wiffing. when it misses he has decent down time which you can take advantage of. in this situation you have alot of options, standard combos link and chains or if you want to play a wakeup game against him save up and toss out the EX Hadouken and it will knock him down allowing you to close in etc.

thats how i play agains a gief. mostly don’t get close to the red cyclone be as annoying as they are except use your hadoukens and time your SRKs.
If you really want to surprise a lariat spamming zangief you can practice timing ultra and super combos so that they connect at the end of a lariat.

i learned a few things about ryu vs. gief matchup that you will like and dislike.

dislike: greenhand frame data isn’t 100% correct on the wiki site. depending on distance thrown, it will incur less block disadvantage making it considerably harder to punish or unpunishable. so gief has 1 more bag of tricks up his sleeve. max range lp green hand into spd, HARD to punish, try it out yourself, you’ll see what i mean. you can’t wait to block to punish, reaction time won’t be fast enough. you almost have to want to stop it before it gets to you. good gief players can bait the dp after EX greenhand by FADC’ing backwards. so you gotta learn to stop yourself from finishing your dp if you see this.

like: reverse(turn around) dp will beat a gief who tries to cross up mixup game you. a lot of giefs think that after they knock you down, they get a free crossup attempt into spd. if you see the crossup coming, just press forward, and right when gief is right on top of you for his crossup, just swing your joystick half circle back and press hp. ryu will DP the correct way. if you have ultra, it’s a free ultra. this works against any crossup.

there are 2 ways to perform a reverse dp. the way i described above. and then this way: just do the dp motion a tad slower than usual, and press hp a little late(or right when you feel like you need to). the game allows you to wait a bit before you press the button and should actually DP ambiguous crossups(meaning if you don’t KNOW 100% if they are crossing you up, this SHOULD dp them either way. i tried it alot and it works maybe 80% of the time.

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

Crimson Viper

From full screen: You have to be very careful entering a fireball war with C Viper as her seismic hammer comes up from the ground.

"From mid screen: Viper has quite strong anti-air, so don’t be baited into jumping straight in on her. Keep in mind that she can feint with seismic hammer. Her best tool is her mixup/crossup game, so she’s going to want to put pressure on to keep you guessing. You can either play keep away by zoning and baiting jump-ins or you can rush her down and not let her have the initiative.

Up close: Whilst Viper’s anti-air is quite strong she is still vulnerable to cross-ups, so use them for pressure. FA can be used to absorb and punish flame kicks.

[Lone_Pilgrim]

Thank you! That’s a lot of work, and very handy to have all in one place. Who would have thought the SRK Ryu forum was working on a novel!

[System_1]

ah sweet good move … ctrl+f time

[sK1LLzk1LLz]

Thank you! That’s a lot of work, and very handy to have all in one place. Who would have thought the SRK Ryu forum was working on a novel!

It only took me a few of hours to do, it wasn’t all that time consuming.

[System_1]

I appreciate this. Good work :tup:

[Trolle_DK]

Good work!

:woot:

[Banker_KingAlo]

Thank you so much !

[Lone_Pilgrim]

It only took me a few of hours to do, it wasn’t all that time consuming.

A few hours is a few hours that you could have been playing SF or watching telly etc, but instead you did something that will help many people’s game. So I say that’s generous.

[Lone_Pilgrim]

I guess the next step is to actually break down the advice into a list of, say, 10 pointers/tactics/tips for each matchup- to make a handy cheatsheet to look at/memorize. As I said, there is A LOT here, all in quite a raw form, but it is the material for making an amazingly useful FAQ. Not that I’m suggesting YOU do that, I’m just putting the idea out there.

[AceKombat]

Thank you and this needs to take over the current/old match up thread .

I came to this mainly in need of help against Rose players . Everyone else ( I’m not sure about Dhalsim , my second weakness . ) I seem to pretty much know all about their strategy . It’s just Rose is somehow giving me a hard time even if I win some or lose some . All I know is some cr.k to soul spiral has good recovery and her throws seem to come in more quicker than my own throws or srk ( Is this true ? It feels like it when I play her online for some reason ) .

[DarthPaul1982]

Thank you and this needs to take over the current/old match up thread .

All I know is some cr.k to soul spiral has good recovery and her throws seem to come in more quicker than my own throws or srk ( Is this true ? It feels like it when I play her online for some reason ) .

Her soul spirals havea min’ of -4 and a max of -8 frame adv. on block. You can throw a poke out after blocking it, but you need to be fast. If youre facing that samecombo a lot, it might be worth using a neutral jump to stuff, or try psyche DPs - though they are risky, of course.

Her throws come out at 3 frames - the same as Ryu’s.