Capcom released char stats for january.
Things to take from last month are:
Urien is still top with the highest winrate. Positions at the upper end mostly unchaged with the exception of birdie dropping two places and blanka replacing him. And ed shooting up a few places up.
Kage usage rate dropping and continues to have the lowest winrate ala evil ryu is still free. Zeku usage rate has shot up probably because of cc hype and daigo. And tier whores continue to depart guile.
Gief usage went up. I wonder why.
I guess all those Abigail players saw the light and embraced MUSCLE POWER!
All the pros are dropping him, and people are bandwagoners. And why struggle with that micro walk command grab when you can do this free.
That is not for free. It costs one precious ex bar! 
When you get that hit though you dont have to worry about burning bar because you got hp cmd grab ~ st hk vortex.
Robbery of the finest quality.
Gief so buffed he can make DPs fly in the wrong direction now.
I would rage quit 
Is that a legit setup?
I believe Mhike said it was completely accidental, but said he’ll lab it up to see if he can recreate it.
I think it’s okay to rq at that point, before you break something. I’d laugh the first match it ever happened after that straight salt.
I love the one twitter comment that basically says “I’m glad I’m too low ranked to have to deal with that shit”.
Great topic i found on reddit which goes through what type of character is best suited to your playstyle.
One thing to note are how you feel playing the character. Do you feel constrained or fearful when using the char? that can be fixed with experience but maybe doing unconformable hits hurts you or generally just taking risks. Or being forced to take a particular spacing when defending and surviving by just rushing the opponent down like y zeku. So far i still havent found my perfect char, closest is probably cody but he’s boring.
Looks like capcom have a new story mode coming up. Makes complete sense they gotta expand on the lore of new characters like menat, g.
I like shotos, maybe I should try Sakura but don’t know if she’s fun to play, any insight?
The answer to this question is always “Play Gief”.
Just to note: Every character in the game has built in shortcomings. Regardless of who you play you’ll dislike a weakness or two. Your ability really is tested on how you navigate around problems.
The problem is the game has no artstyle in the first place.
Fans will make this game look godlike if they anyone bothers with the leaked source code seriously.
Sakura is that shoto that’s easy to use. What makes sakura easy?
Most of your combos have easy execuution and since Sakura thrives up close you have easy ways of making your buttons safe ob with the tatsu and on hit you get a mix up. Unlike other shotos you really dont need to go through the trouble hit confirming with most of your buttons. Alex myers is obsessed with hit confirming cr mk into hp dp but i wouldnt recommend that. You get good corner travel with dp or ex tatsu enders. Even stray punishes off st lk ~ md dp gets you oki if the opponent doesnt back rise. Ex tatsu sends the opponent to the corner and combos from counter hit with st lk and is -2 ob.
Another reason why she’s a great alternative is she has amazing anti airs without needing complicated inputs like dp. Ryu’s back roundhouse is slow and if you havent pefectly timed it only hits once, down fierce is bad, and st hk often trades. Sakura has a air throw, an amazing down fierce, and a back fierce that has good hitbox and crush counters getting you a combo easily. In addition sakura has a great dash (she covers a lot of the screen) and jump in. Just does great with the fundamentals. I’d say even better than ryu.
Sakura’s lack of mid range control is made up by having a decent fireball game, one of fastest walkspeeds in the game, a far reaching dash and hard to anti air jumpin. And the farthest reaching 4 frame in the game. However most of the time youll be relying on st lk or dash in and press buttons.
Weaknesses are a poor mid range and you have no braindead ways of getting in like akuma. You have to rely on your fundamentals. For punishes a lot of the time you have to rely on st lk which can be risky if you misjudged the recovery the opponent’s move. And you’re in trouble if you mess up a md dp. For catching dashins or annoying forward moving specials you have to sometimes commit with st lk and the reward can be underwhelming.
Sakura doesnt have a powerful fireball game, for 1) you cant combo from lights even with bar 2) hadoken doesnt do much 3) you dont get a knockdown like you do with akuma 4) it’s -8 ob meaning it can get punished 5) it’s total frames is on the slow end, pretty much the same as ken’s. So your bread and butter combos will involve tatsu’s or tatsus. Lastly most of your buttons will have a lot of recovery.