st.LK xx Snake. Leads to an 1-frame link into his Snake LP.
^ gotta work on that!
Idk if this was mentioned before but I’ve noticed that when lei is too close to his opponents is when his stance pressure off his razor edge is super punishable. From a slight distance it seems like the animal frame traps are hard to mash out of. I’ve been trying to implement creating distance w/ s.lp or s.mp then going into razor edge stance cancel nannigans. Thoughts?
Razor Rush´s frames have never been too great to start with. If your opponent knows Lei, Razor Rush has little surprise value when blocked. s.lk xx Snake makes Razor Rush1 xx Snake obsolete. Razor Rush2 xx Dragon and sometimes Razor Rush3 xx Panther are the only viable options left in my opinion.
I pretty much replaced most Razor Rush stance stuff to stance shuffling on whiff and only rarely use it on block against knowledgeable players. I prefer to use st.lk xx Snake and st.mk xx Drunk for frame traps and mixups now.
What about razor rush crane?
I see what ur saying. I use st.lk xx snake too but my I kinda like Razor Rush 2 xx Dragon to lk to crane to crane dance to back turn to that tv that ends in drunken. Usually works like a charm. Especially if spaced properly. Haven’t really had success w/ Razor Rush 3 xx Panther. Mk xx drunk I’d like more if u couldn’t mash out of the mixups and raw launch Mk xx Drunk xx Cr.mp xx Cr.mp. But oh well lol. When capcom gives u lemons.
Man I had an off day with lei yesterday. Tried fighting cammy and Chun…needless to say I got my ass kicked. Switched my mains and kicked ass lol. But I almost dropped lei. I couldn’t do anything lol. So frustrating but I don’t give up that easy. Is there a lei matchup thread? I mean I’ll look but I just felt like asking anyway.
I made one. No one ever posted in it soooooo I deleted it I think. lol
While none of the stance moves that are cancelable (drunk MK/HP, drunk MP>MP, dragon LP/MP, tiger K) cannot be canceled up to Super (excluding Panther Scratch), he can still cancel them into Cross Art or Cross Assault. While both of them cost 3 bars, I think it may be another way to finish off opponents, or go for a Assault combo when it is a 2v2 or something like that. I wonder if there’s a good use to them.
What Antiairs are people using the most when Lei is in naked stance in neutral? Is mkDP consistent enough, is A2A the way to go since he has good ones and I’ll be using those to AA in some stances anyway, or is it best to quickly go DRU MK or BT HK?
Part of my In the Lab series, Lei X Xiaoyu combos and tech:
I use MK DP. f>df>f works really well to close in the distance or autocorrect and make sure the DP hits them.
You mean skipping the d.input to inch slightly further and have it hit better? And autocorrect meaning it can stuff crossups?
I do not know if this is widely known or if Yung_Ice covered it in his video, but the air invincibility on BT HK and DRU MK allow you to beat out any wakeup reversal that is considered airborne and go into a big damage combo. Gonna test if making MK meaty enough lets it be safe on block.
Yes. Even when you’re trying to autocorrect and you walk forward too much without pressing MK, f input will block cross-up for you. When they’re hitting front you have to press MK pretty early of course.
DRU MK can be -2~-5 on block.
I actually didn’t make much use of stuffing reversals with those two; most DPs have a version that is grounded at the 1st active frame even if their other versions don’t. The exception would be Hwoarang; iirc his Sky Rocket is airborne at the 1st active frame regardless of version.
Well then it could just be something to remember and use in character specific matches, which is kind of Lei’s thing right?
Speaking of Lei’s thing, I am trying to come up with a very basic gameplan with him while I start learning the character, before I go crazy with the stances and tech. How does this sound?
My main poke is st.mk buffered into DRU, where I either cancel it into c.mp until Raw launchers come out or DRU lp into 50/50. I eliminate the air game so I can start hitting s.mk with mk.dp and j.HK. I’d like to work in c.hpxxComet Kick for the damage, but I bet it is unwise. If they are not a DP spammer (rare) I might RRx2 but that is the only string I go into after completing it once or twice for conditioning.
I cannot do his DRU cancel off launcher yet so I usually go for simple DP combo or RRx2 into Dragon’s Spite in corner for fullscreen tiger (I’m sure terrible vs. Good players, but it works on D rank), DRG frame traps, or lkxxCrane.
Stance-wise I am using DRU the most for good AA and 50/50 and trying to get accustomed to DRG and Tiger the most since they play off each other. I really want to learn Crane because it is one of the things that makes Lei great but I feel you need super character knowledge and reads and I do not have those yet. As a result I might learn BT before it except for a really basic Crane 50/50 on oki (any ideas?). Avoiding Snake and Panther entirely until I get the other stances down, I feel I’m not missing anything crucial by doing so.
It is so daunting, especially for a C player like me, but I really want this to happen.
Don’t let BP discourage you. I’m a C player too (and was a D player until a few days ago).
Getting accustomed to Dragon and Tiger without Snake will be quite difficult, because the only way to go into Dragon stance would be raw or from Razor Rush, and Razor Rush is quite a limited tool.
I suggest getting used to Snake first out of the 5 animal stances because it is a straightforward stance and you can cancel into it from a st.LK. You might not get THAT much utility out of learning the stance, but I feel it’s gonna introduce you to getting into stances in the first place, which is quite important imo.
You’re missing fast walk speed actually, by omitting Snake and Panther. My main pokes, aside from st.MK, are actually from Snake and Panther (Snake MP, Snake HP, Panther HP, Panther HK) because they walk forward fast. To me, Lei feels sluggish without them. If you can work around them, I think Panther can be learned a bit later on since you’re already trying to get the hang of Dragon and Tiger.
Crane can’t do much if they keep blocking, so frame trap and beating the guessed mash are the key in that stance. Frame trap works despite him being minus on block for most moves because he can eat either crouching or standing attacks. Crane Dance is +4 on block and goes to BT so I think learning BT should be done earlier than Crane.
Congratulations on the rank up! I suppose you were too busy giving frame data to the needy and downtrodden you haven’t had time to actually enjoy the game much. You are a saint.
I am actually still on D+ and won’t have network mode until September, but I feel like a C player now since a while back I finally went “eff using all the gimmicks you see top players doing, just play smart and AA,” and I became unbeatable vs. d/d+ers.
And now I’m throwing all that “fundamentals and straightforward” style of play away and using Lei xD.
You bring up good points. I avoid SNK first because I thought it’d only be useful if I could do the one frame link off st.lk or had a background in rush down characters. In reality, however, just being comfortable with the buttons (and it seems to have some good ones) and having access to its walkspeed should go a long way in feeling less limited with the character.
I also experimented with back turn a lot today and I think I can start using that a lot earlier too: has great blockstring potential feels like 2012 version with how little pushback it has lol.
The reasons I attempted to learn DRG and Tiger so early is that they play off each other very well and I go into DRG (and therefore Tiger) after my launchers. It traps well, goes into crane and tiger for more traps, etc. As for tiger, I’ve played enough as King to learn that one can win D ranked matches solely with an armor move.
I’m still having trouble with Oki as Lei because he has so many options and I’m not close to being able to play it like Ice does. Would you happen to have any easy examples, specifically from Snake? Atm I just jump in herpderp or DRU at a distance so I can catch roll/lp to set up 50/50, and no one wants to reversal if I am at that distance.
Haha thanks. Quite frankly I was simply skeptical about online in general, but lack of a local scene turned me towards it (I even bought an ethernet cable for it :)).
Snake simply can get you into Dragon from his Snake MP, which is the primary reason I recommended learning Snake first. You can just learn MP button if you’d prefer, because that way you don’t have to interact too much with the stance and will have a new access point Dragon.
But feel free to disregard it since you’re going to Dragon after a launcher. I actually thought you were mainly trying to go for frame traps during neutral game.
Snake doesn’t really have good frame traps aside from ones from Snake MP (eg. MP > LP), and going for crumple with Snake HP counter-hit requires a specific read. I think Dragon is good for that but I believe you already know it. BT LP/LKs are quite nice too.
Drunken stance is the easiest one though due to it having a high/low. And herpderp jump-in is good too cuz his jump is so low and j.MK looks ambiguous 
I’m actually a pretty blank slate on Lei atm, at least in muscle memory. I have more experience in DRG than anything but DRU but it is really just going for options in Oki against a dummy opponent. If you advise it is best to familiarize with Snake and/or Backturn before DRG, Crane, and Tiger then I can start that tomorrow easy. My main goal right now is really just having just enough options with Lei that I can validate using him online over simpler characters, and then while I get used to that I can start adding more options in.
So if you had to pick what would be a better starting point for Lei, one capable of AA, DRU 50/50, and doing Oki with Dragon and Tiger (still iffy on Crane), or one with the first two and competenent Snake in neutral and BT for pressure?
Sorry I always tend to overly think about things or ask opinions rather than just learning it yolo. But then again I think that’s why Lei could be perfect for me: there is so much to think about.
Well, I’m not really at the skill level to give others much advice, but I’ll try to help as much as I can.
I think learning Crane can come last; for now you can just go for Crane Dance after Dragon LK > Crane into BT combo on hit and learn about other specifics later.
I would actually go for neutral Regular stance with Drunken Oki with a mix of Dragon/Tiger for now. Neutral Snake is something that doesn’t have to be used very often (and it’ll be frustrating since blocking motion kicks you out of your stance), and BT frame traps can be learned a bit later. When you have enough confidence that you want to try out Snake, try to mix in Snake MP > Dragon into Dragon frame traps when you know the opponent won’t mash jabs after blocking, and you can also try Snake LP~MP~LP into regular stance normal, since it is +1 on block.