The anti A-sakura thread

Classic Fighting Games Capcom VS SNK 2
1

I hate A-sakura. In my opinion, she is the most annoying character throughout the game. She is the reason why Im hesitant to use Blanka and K-groove in a tournament.

Its already an uphill battle trying fight her when you’re using K-groove. Unless you have insane Just Defending skills, sakura can build meter and trap you down with her many variations of RC hurricane kick strings. Once she has full meter, you then have to guess when the hell she’s gonna try to activate her custom.

Since blocking her custom is just the same as getting hit by it, all sakura has to do is to make sure you’re on the ground while she activates. This is an easy task for Sakura to do because she has many tools to keep you grounded. The best way for her to do this, is to activate while you’re in a block stun. That way, she can chipped your life away without feeding your rage meter. Even blocking her c.jab will keep you on the ground long enough to be hit by her ground custom.

So this is the part where you start running, jumping around like a monkey trying to bait her into activating her CC. for ex. Blanka’s KKK hop, or Bison’s teleport. Getting hit by her air custom is a lot better than having your life chipped away by her ground custom. But once in a while, there’s still gonna be a time where your opponent will catch you with her ground CC causing you to lose the match.

So as much as I hate fighting against Sakura with K-groove, Im gonna stick with K-groove because its my best groove. I need help against this bitch, therefore i wanna start a discussion on how to approach a match against any Sakura in general.

Other than taking lots of damage, does Sakura has any other weakness? Is there any tactic, attack, special move, or super that she has trouble dealing with?

What are the most common pokes strings to look out for when fighting her?

Does she have any counter characters? If there isnt any, out of cammy, chunli, sagat, blanka, bison, and vega, who would be the best character to put up against her and why?

Sakura’s Hk hurricane kick can produce 3 hits. Is it possible for any low crouching character to block or just defend the first hit and then hit Sakura out of her hurricane kick?

And finally, is it worth playing K-groove? Because from the area where i play, whenever there’s A-groove, there’s A-sakura.

Any advice will be greatly appreciated.

2

Out of those characters, Cammy and Vega are better bets. Even Blanka.

Tiny characters can JD first hit and then kick Sakura’s ass.

However, I gave up on K groove gaainst A-sak and switched to C groove. I htae A-sak.

Annoying wakeup poke string: RC fierce fireball, cr lp cr hp into hurricane kick.

3

K-Blanka can reversal back hop out of meaty Sakura attacks (including the perfectly distanced dive kick… the one that give fat frame advantage). Even when Blanka’s in the corner too. That’s a big part of how K-Blanka baits out that CC activation and make her waste it. The catch is you only have a 1 frame window to hit that b+KKK and be safe. I practice this a lot in training mode. The technique is, wait until the last moment (where blanka does the little flip in his getup animation), repeatedly press b+KKK (twice is enough for me).

Works against the hard RC hurricane too (her other cheap frame advantage move). Today at the arcade… Sakura tried meaty hard RC hurricane when I was cornered. I did reversal hop back, ducked the second hit of hurricane, level 3.

Don’t give up K-Blanka. It’s not that bad versus A-Sak. He’s the strongest overall character in the game in my opinion. Just has one tricky match-up vs. A-Sakura. It’s not totally hopeless though (even though I admit it is a little hard), so don’t give up.

4

Yeah baiting customs it the key to be beating A Sak in K, the timing is difficult as hell though. How easy you can handle A Sak is really just dependant on your JD skills, and kara back hopping skills.

5

I you can knock her out of her custom after 1 jd with a small char, I’d reccomend Athena. Athenas D. FP probably(not sure haven’t tested) goes right under sak annoying RH poke, and it should stop sak players from abusing it. Also any time you think your going to be rc trapped in the corner teleport away. even D, DB, B+ short is good against rcs(but has terrible recovery time).

6

Against K groovers, good Sak players often start the CC with d.mk to mix them up.

7

I fail to see the mix up. Most A-Sak players start the CC with s.roundhouse because it’s only 1 frame less than fierce and the close version AND the far version hit all crouchers (unlike far fierce), so there’s no iffy range… you just do it. Close s.rh comes out in 4 frames, so does c.forward. You can JD them both crouching.

Where is the mix up?

8

Close s.HK doesn’t hit Athena when she’s doing c.HP (ie. Athena c.HP’s, you CC through, s.HK = you lose). I start all my customs with d.MK because of goofy stuff like that. The extra range and easy link off d.LP doesn’t hurt either.

Did you say close s.HP hits on frame 3? That might be useful then (I thought close s.HK was better in every way before).

9

I guess you learn something new every day, I wasn’t aware that st. hk can be jded low too, then again there are no K groovers where I live, and I don’t use K. :bluu:

10

Anything that you can block low you can JD low.

11

use eagle

12

Gouki can teleport out of most of A-Saks cheese. JD into teleport or dp also helps a ton. The move that screws me with blanka or gouki is her damn RC fierce fireball. I havebt been able to play against her in a while and i was wondering how well does rolento do against her. Seems like he wouldnt be at a disavantage at least. Rolentos sorta resistant to being cornered and I rember his D.FP beating her S.HK. JD into trip wire might work against a few of her strings.

13

Sakura has no anti-air to Rolento’s jump ins. Use j.MP, j.HK, j.d+MK, and j.HP from scouter hops or otherwise. Sakura can’t do a thing… yeah!!

14

what i do now is just counter them with K Maki

anything they do down + 3k beats it

sure you loose energy and eventually waste a whole char just to get away like some of her life but it’s worth it espically when she takes out your whole team.

if you learn how to play with maki that’s even advanced because then you can do cool stuff, but that’s for advanced players easy way out is to just pick mako and down + 3k everything JD to get energy back

15

you’re kidding right?

16

no i’m serious how i beat A Sakura. I just put maki on my team and use her to counter sakura reducing the 3v3 game to 2v2

17

:wtf: What if they switch team orrder?

18

i just watch their hands and mimic so always have maki vs sakura it’s fool proof!

19

I don’t usually take the time to let my opponent see my hands moving during a fight. I just tap it if the adjusted their line up. Even so, if it’s not just a 1vs1 fight, and you rely soley on Maki, it’s a safe bet if they know strategies with A-Sakura their not completely dependent on one single character.

20

wtf… that’s some true New Jersey shit right there… :lol: