The first thing we gotta do is determine which zeku version is better agaisnt each character in neutral game. Then what zeku version is better agaisnt each character when he is in.
Young zeku (rushdown)
Old zeku (zoning)
So far i got this for neutral:
Young: Nash, Guile, Ryu, Chun, Akuma, Sim, Cammy, R.mika, Laura, Ibuki, Karin, Urien
Old: abigail, gief, balrog, bison, vega, necalli
Both versions take huge risks but young gets biggest rewards so imo that should be the standard to deal with most matchups.
That said, it looks like Bison, Balrog, Chun beat us…
I’m a bit torn on Abigail. Maybe Old Zeku is better but rushing down Abigail feels better than trying to keep him out. Rushing down with old zeku might be the best option.
Against Karin there’s a decent up close range where Old Zeku does well because st.lk keeps her from pressing her best buttons. If you’re at half inside the lenght of her st.mk she can’t really argue with OZ’s st.lk.
Chun match up is silly stuff though. Feels like you have to hope they don’t know all they have to do is press buttons.
I still have yet to play a chun, but having mained her in her past I know that her weakness is both sweeps and fireballs.
Sweeps because they tend to beat out all her standing pokes (YZ has slide) fireballs because she doesn’t have great answers for them. Zeku doesn’t have a fireball though.
If you can figure out the chuns rhythm though, slide will more than likely be a decent option against her. Low moves in general (which all of Zekus are pretty shit) tend to give her problems.
The problem is when the slide didn’t connect and also Chun has one. What I’ve found annoying the most are her long limbs, whiff punish that shit is almost impossible. Working her outside her st.hp/st.hk range helps to get there with the slide when she throws out these normals. If she chose to go with fireballs getting inside with Hozanto will make our job even easier. Once we’re there we need to apply a non stop pressure,if she keep blocking or using the V-Reversal we had to restart from the beginning. Getting the lifelead would help us at taking advantage of her faults like jumps, staying outside her longest normals will give us more time to react. Atm this kind of gameplan works for me,but isn’t easy. She’s definitely getting stronger in AE, I hope Zeku did same or guys we have a problem.
She definitely beats Zeku, but it is not that bad since Zeku (young) abuses the game engine more. If there were 0f input lag it would be like 6 5-3.5 chun but thankfully it is not lol we can dash our way in and pressure her until the other player cracks.
Have no problems with Guile, he can’t keep out Young. Booms aren’t really a problem, his far reaching normals are -oB and we can get the turn. Guile can’t really go on offense on Zeku without taking risks and trying to playing lame will make him cornered in an heartbeat. There Young kills him. In general Zeku need to pay attention to Guile CC normals like the backhand fist and the straight one, even not getting cornered helps. With young normals isn’t hard keeping Guile at the bay,st.HP works amazingly from midrange against him.
A lot of Zeku’s normals outright whiff on Chun in blockstrings, so that MU seems bad from that alone. He can’t do st.mp > st.mp on her crouching hitbox and he can’t do st.mk > st.mp either
I’ve yet to have that happen with other characters.
Yeah, it seems we’re forced to get closer or use Young st.HK the most against her,but using the latter from a safer distance just make the st.mp whiff by default. With the only change Zeku gets from AE and the buffs Chun will get this MU will be officially his worst.
When you say booms aren’t really a problem I’m assuming you are playing against terrible guiles. What about his boom game isn’t hard to get around? The only thing you got is your projectile invulnerable moves and you basically have to do them almost ahead of time to not get them blocked.ir guess and if you guess you are getting punished bad for wrong guesses since he’s -6 and point blank at best. If it’s slide it’s even worse.
What are you using to beat his booms. Pls don’t tell me your jumping them or palming them… a good guile isn’t going to let you palm his booms for free.
Idk. I’d have to see some of your games to see. I saw Valle beating up a guile once with YZ but he wasn’t getting punished for blocked shoulders at all.
Young zeku hozantos have proyectile inv frames for all versions starting in frame 8 so guile cannot really spam booms mindlessly at mid range
Young run > slide goes below booms
Zeku CA is 4 frames startup and has a far reaching hitbox
His slide is fairly good at mid range
His vtrigger allows him to insta teleport next to guile and pressure with the string cr.lk, cr.mk, s.hp, cr.hk. Thats really nasty to block if you are trying to move back
Old zeku ex command jump has projectile inv frames from frame 1
And guile cracks to pressure once you get in. Young zeku normals are really fast. I dont fear guile either
Also Valle has good fundamentals and is a good guide and low-mid level but for high level i would recommend watching chris wong videos. Ignore all the crap of pro players (like momochi etc) that played zeku week 1 for the hype and dropped him shortly after. They win cause they are great players not because they were using zeku as he should be used.
That’s all fine and dandy, but what I’m saying is how many of those counters can be done on reaction and not get blocked against a good guile? All of those are anticipatory afaik. The only one I could see being used on reaction is ex hozanto. There is literally no way you are hitting guile with an H hozanto unless you do it at like near the same time they boom… or they do some dumb shit like walk into it… which I’ve seen but… I mean…maybe playing loose and risky like that is called for… I guess. It’s faster than a jump anyways.
I’m using MP Hozanto the most. Once you are in range baiting them with neutral jumps catching the Guile off guard becomes easier, you could use even HP Hozanto if Guile throws his booms mindlessly. Outside his far reaching normal Guile can’t do nothing but throw a SB, if he’s too scared to do that YZ has room to close the range and apply pressure. From close range most Guiles don’t love to use booms to prevent being jumped on,so they need to make a decision. The thing could be problematic when he has meter 'cuz reacting to ex SB with Hozanto is impossible,but doing so Guile give up useful meter for his EX Flash Kicks. Hozanto are good enough to bypass also VT SB. You just need to force Guile to shoot them booms. @serpentaurus is also right,even EX Slide could work, but I’m still not too good at doing so.
Sometimes happened a Guile is good at baiting the Hozanto and punish, but he can’t really bait them all. Once YZ gets in push him out it’s hard for Guile without using V-Reversal or EX FK. Baiting the VR it’s easy with st.lk into grab, for the FK we have definitely need to anticipate the move.
Yeah, took a page out of your book watched a few of your guile matches and saw what you did and decided to do it myself. I pwned the shit out of a guile that normally beats me.
Suffice it to say I was just doing random hozantos and slides and getting punished sometimes but once I got in he cracked pretty much everytime. Feels like shit playing that way though because I feel like I’m using bronze level tactics but if it’s what gets the W then, well… that’s just how the game plays.
Anywho thanks for the tips. Once the guile was worried about both random slide and random hozanto he had like nothing else he could do.
Yeah, SFV Guile is less a defensive wall than his SF4 version, especially the SB, that’s why Dieminion didn’t use him anymore. Strangely Guiles nowadays are too afraid of forward marching characters and they literally shit in their pants when YZ gets near to them. I’ve seen this distance tactic used by Tokido when he tries Zeku and works. Hozanto is surprisingly good against fireballs and the reward vs Guile worth the risk. Glad to know it helps, once you’re next to him, there’s nothing I need to explain to you, Guiles literally panic.
In other news, I’ve being focusing on OZ now and I didn’t noticed how his st.mk screwed a ton of people. Works exactly like the Laura one,but Zeku has advantage. Followed with st.HP xxHP/EX Koku leads to a fuckton of damage, I’ve to give a look at your post kd stuff now. Not only Cammy,but even the other dives lose clean to it, this character is full of surprise.