Sup guys. I have murked the Sagat threads for awhile but never posted. I main both Sagat and Akuma and was wondering if you can give me some tips on my match-up against a local Cody here. The first fight is using Akuma and the Second one I use Ken. After that I use Sagat until the 6th fight. The links are posted below:
[media=youtube]Sti52_nxwrc&playnext=1&videos=ya5ySCcOL8c-[/media] Part 1
[media=youtube]Loy_7rghGZE&playnext=1&videos=JO4Yuoaiioc-[/media] Part 2
All tips and pointers on fighting Cody are welcomed. I just ask that you keep them constructive. I will be money matching this guy soon so I need to know what aspects of my game I can improve on. Thanks in advance.
Practice your spacing. You tend to throw tiger shots and stay back. if he’s just going to focus absorb them, you are wasting your time and going to give him ultra and negate your fireball game anyways. so, if he is wanting to stay far away, start walking toward him to push him into a corner. Work on applying pressure with meaty cr lks on wakeup, and start reacting to all of his jump ins.
DISCALIMER: I am a scrub. But I have been playing Sagat for over a year now. So yeah if all my advice sucks, keep in mind that I’m not a Tourney player or anything. But I think I understand the character and his strategies pretty darn well. Anyways:
I see you make many of the same mistakes that I make myself. I think the first thing is you have to punish those jump-ins. When he’s jumping in close be sure to use l.TU for when he’s pretty much over your head. I would also practice kara h.TU (that’s forward lk, then cancel right into h.TU) so you can get him from a bit more of a distance. But yeah I struggle with the same thing, you can’t let people jump in all over the place on you. That’s free damage. And if you’re not feeling confident in your reacOtions and you have meter, then what I do sometimes is Tiger Scar to freeze the screen at the moment I predict he is going to jump in - confirm that and hit with the TU.
Other things I noticed:
Toss out a few HK to keep the spacing and distance. You could’ve easily hit him out of the air a few times, instead of jumping back just by standing HK.
Show some restraint on those Tiger Knees, they hit deep and easily punishable. Normally I like to mash throw on block, sometimes you get lucky and can beat out a reversal. But you are at the mercy of your opponents if it’s blocked meaty.
When throwing Tiger Shots from across the screen, throw a few change ups. Especially when your opponent, like int he video, is just hopping over them. By throwing a light one instead of a fierce, he’s just going to jump up and land right on it. Keep the speed varied - they all hit for the same damage - but it can mess up your opponents timing when neutral hopping over them.
A few times you had your opponent knocked down in the corner after throwing a few Tiger Shots. You just stood still and keep throwing when he woke up… something that has REALLY helped my game out A LOT in the past month: rushing in on a downed opponent. You force a rock/paper/scissors game on them when you do (a good strategy when you have a life lead, I think… or you are behind and need to turn this around). So here are your options:
Forward+HP on wake-up, this makes a over head fierce punch is that is only blockable standing. Most people like to c.block on wake-up. If you find your opponent doing this, it will surprise them. This is my favorite option, because most people like to just crouch block when they see you dashing in on them after scoring a knock down.
Throw on wake-up. Risky, but if your opponent is playing defensive and he likes to block on wake-up when you are rushing in, this is a good way for free damage.
My favorite: Dash across the screen to your downed opponent AND BLOCK. If you’re playing someone who likes to mash out specials when downed, here’s your chance for a free punish. Overly aggressive (scrubby) players like to mash out a move when they see you closing in. If this happens a few times on your rush down - then start waiting for them to do it and get ready to punish.
Crouch Light kick: I think this is Sagat’s fastest move. I would hit with a couple of these and then end with a standing LK or a L.TS - I think that is a fairly safe block string if your links are tight.
Another good option is back off a few steps off a downed opponent and simply HK. If they try to jump away this usually knocks them out of the air.
… I’ve improved my game a lot and have won so much more as Sagat by just rushing in after downing an opponent. In your video you did a lot of “holding ground” after getting a knock down, but most of the time you had your opponent in the corner. I think you need to rush in on them when they’re in the corner and keep them there. Make them do something to get out.
When jumping over your opponent be sure to use LK - it’s Sagat’s only cross-up. Follow it up with a nice combo.
FADC Tiger Uppercut … don’t mash it out on wake-up or from the ground without FADC’ing. Again something I struggle with bad in my own game: unsafe and over using Tiger Uppercut. If you’re going to do one from the ground (basically not using it as an anti-air move) then you have to FADC. TU leaves him more open than an unsafe Tiger Knee. Like I said before, sometimes I can mash out a throw before their reversal on a Tiger Knee block (thanks lag?), but most of the times you can’t do anything about a whiffed Tiger Uppercut.
I struggle baaaad with this one, but I found that you are most successful when you limit your TU to only using it as anti-air and not from the ground. If you feel like your opponent is rushing in and you need to counter something on wake up, a much safer choice is going to be a light Tiger Knee, I think.
Well I hope that helped! If that was all terrible advice I’m sure someone will come along and correct me. I HATE the Cody match-up. Maybe someone can give good options for what to do on block against Criminal Upper and Cody’s other specials. Whenever I play online it seems like that is all very safe and hard to punish (?).
Thanks everybody for the advice on the matches. I certainly need to be able to control space better with all of my fireball characters.
Adam_prime: Very sound advice you gave me and some of the stuff you said I was noting as I watched the matches back. I appreciate the detailed feedback and will be documenting most of what you said for training purposes.
Enjoying the videos here, I uploaded a replay of mine to YouTube. Been refining my Sagat lately, but I need to get either a stick or a fightpad because my Tiger Shots are consistently off on the Dualshock and my zoning suffers. Either way, would like some suggestions, positives, and negatives lol…
haha you act exactly like my friend does when he loses.
For one thing, dont hate on the game because, from a third party perspective, its easy to see why you lost. Yeah that guy was a scrub, but you played scrubbier. We can go through the whole vid if you want and Ill tell you where you can improve.
Block… That is pretty much it in that scenario. You just had to block ONE of those uppercuts in each case, and you would have won.
Really, block strings would have been useless in that match, because you would have been mash DPed out of your cr lk links. If you play a ken like that, just stick to standing fierce punch as your primary form of dealing damage and to punish his DPs because he will probably toss out another one after each punch connects. To which you block and repeat.
But yeah, don’t blame his scrubbyness for your loss when all you had to do was hold back.