This will probably be long, quite long, depending on how much time I have to type. It will also more than likely be full of autocorrect mishaps. I apologize in advance and will do my best to keep the errors to a minimum.
The reason for this post is boredom and to hopefully spark some meaty discussion.
Infiltration is currently the player that I would consider to be the best player of streetfighter 5 right now. It’s arguable and I don’t want to argue the point, but we all can probably agree on the fact that he’s a very good player, and that combined with how… Obvious his style of play is, I thought it would be a decent venture to break his style down and see what I could reverse engineer about it to suit my Chun and maybe even future characters. The thing is, infiltration uses a very easy to see “flowchart” this is becaus the game is new and because he as a player isn’t the gimmicky Pete type. He’s solid. He uses fundamentals. He uses reads and baits and he spams certain things… Let’s get into it.
The primary pattern that his Nash seems to “threaten” is:
Backdash>throw fireball>follow fireball in for pressure
But he doesn’t actually use that entire pattern much at all. What he tends to do is backdash, throw a couple of jabs then look for the opponent to jump at him, at which point he AA’s them. If they didn’t jump, then he tends to throw his fireball.
But he mixes things up quite a bit. He might instead decide to dash in or air scythe in, or he might decide to backdash again. But that’s kinda where his options stop. So it’s backdash then threaten fireball then mixup between AA, back or forward dash or scythe kick thing.
This is the pattern p/flowchart that I’m theoretically trying to reverse engineer with Chun, but already we see that there are problems:
Chun doesn’t have a motion fireball. So she CANT backdash and then threaten an immediate fireball… And that’s a big problem because that’s the BASIS of Infiltrations pattern even if he rarely does it. She can backdash and then jab to bait for the AA, but since there is no fireball threat, the jab is a weak bait.
So how can this be overcome?
That’s a good question.
My answer is… Maybe I can use something else as my “fireball”, or maybe I can use use a simple walk back, in place of the dash, or maybe I can simply always dash back and do 2 jabs (to look for the jump/dash and to gain enough time for a charge) the first 2 ways I wasn’t able to come up with a good way of making work… But the 2 jabs thing is actually doable:
Backdash, 2 jabs>throw fireball>dash in after fireball and pressure is VERY close to the pattern infiltration threatens… YES!!!
Ok so now that I have that theoretically “solved” that part of the pattern I have to look at all the other things infiltration does since he doesn’t actually use the entire pattern that often. As I said befor he likes to mix it up with forward and backdash… Chun has even better variants of these than Nash does… So good to go right there. The other thing he likes to do is use his scythe to bypass neutral and just get in… Does Chun have a variant? Actually… She does. Her v skill right here is a tool that can be used much like nashes… It has less range, but it’s ranges can be mixed up by stopping short with air lk legs, or letting the entire thing go into one of her jump attacks. This is non standard even for Nash since if expected it’s an easy AA for the opponent. But all in all, Infiltrations neutral flowchart can more than likely be reverse engineered by Chun players with some obvious substitutes here and there to make it work.
Now of course a word of warning is needed here:
What infiltration is doing SEEMS easy, but like daigos fireball game, it isn’t. The devil is in the details. Just because we can see the pattern doesn’t mean we can pull it off the way infiltration does, even if we were to use Nash ourselves. So of course MUCH can be lost in translation when converting it to different characters. So don’t anyone reading mistake for a second that I’m saying that you can just use this pattern and win like infil… LOL… If only it were that easy. But still, copying top players is a great way to get better and understand games quicker.
One thing to point out here is that even though Chun might not be able to use this pattern as well as Nash… There are more than likely options in the variants that Chun has that are BETTER than what Nash could do… Looking for things like this is a way to really make her come into her own.
Ok so now that we’ve covered the neutral game flowchart… Time to look at how infiltration likes to attack and try to reverse engineer that as well:
Infiltration LOVES to make his opponent block one attack or maybe two, then backdash and do his fireball pattern. Chun can do this as well. He also loves to throw out a poke, have it wiff on accident and then backdash immediately. He basically loves to backdash all damn day.
So where is he getting his damage?
He gets it from:
Anti airs
Hit and blocked fireballs
his v trigger mixups into combos
the occasional random poke from the ground that hits, like his scythe
Using all the meter he’s built with fireballs to combo into super after he gets a good v trigger mixup
It’s important to note that he doesn’t throw often at all… He’s all about his safety and using his v trigger and anti airs to get his damage. This isn’t to say that he NEVER throws, but he doesn’t try to throw to enforce a frame trap style of mixup, he mostly throws opportunistically or after a blocked jumpin. He does also like his overhead of course.
And one last thing to say about him:
He LOVES to run because his v trigger allows him to crossup and get out of the corner damn near for free. I’ve actually seen him have his opponent cornered, then he walked himself into his own corner… V triggered out… And and damn near walked himself back into the corner again… That’s ALOT of running and he did almost all of it without ever throwing a fireball or dashing forward.
Chun doesnt have a v trigger mixup or ability to get out of the corner, so she won’t be able to spam it so easily, but she DOES have a v trigger which backs people up on activation… Not quite as good, but… A reasonable facsimile?
Also, we have to remember, Chun has better re pressure options after getting in on her opponent with her fireball chasing game, so she doesn’t need to back off after one or 2 pokes all the time… She can press her luck with instant air legs if she so chooses.
Going back to how infiltration gets his damage, Chun won’t be able to get fireball damage like Nash does, but she does have AA damage, she also has a better tick throw game than Nash, because of her fast walkspeed.
Well, I hope this analysis of Infiltrations Nash maybe helps some lower level players out when the game drops, I also hope I’m right about being able to reverse engineer the footsie pattern… I could be totally wrong. But I really hope this maybe sparks some discussion on the deeper plays that infiltration as well as other top players use. I only barely scratched the surface here and I’ve left more minute things out.
I really hope people are willing to discuss these things the way that jap players do… Really get into things and dissect players. I hope others maybe see how some of this might work for their character in certain ways.
Also, the pattern may not work against certain players for various reasons… Adaptation will always be needed over anything else. As an example, Chun might want to dash backwards twice and omit the jabs versus certain players or characters… But the basic pattern to try and understand is still there.
