I’ve decided to make an easier to read, easy reference thread of Sakura Matchups. Anything posted will be updated on the first page for easy access, and I will continually organize the first post. Many of this information will be taken from other threads and posts, in which I will not take credit for, and will give the original poster’s name. If you don’t want your post here, tell me. Contributions are welcome.
Recent Update: 12/30/09- Shortened spoilers.
[COLOR=“Red”]CURRENTLY UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Cause I didn’t reserve any posts, expect a change here soon. A drastic one. Hang tight.[/COLOR]
cammy’s spiral arrow is only punishable if she doesnt do it from max distance. if she does it from max distance she can immediately go into cannon spike and itll beat out your punishments. make sure you check the distance shes coming from.
for blanka, c.lp is your friend… destroys all his horizontal balls, and c.HP destroys all vertical. patience is key, watch what hes doing before attempting to punish. his slide has extremely bad recovery, and can be punished. avoid jumping on blanka (especially when he has ultra). c.HP breaks his ultra when he goes vertical, but you MUST block the slam on the ground first. his electricity is punishable with different crouching kicks. if youre close, c.lk; med far, c.mk; far away, sweep. using the wrong one will get you electrocuted. watch for the low ball -> throw combo. all his jumps are punishable with c.hp. his j.HK (i believe) has vertical range not unlike saks, so you have to time this right to hit him. be wary of doing cross unders after the EX tatsu, as he can punish you with EX vertical ball.
with gief, dont rely on c.HP on his jump ins… ANY gief who knows how to play a gief will know that c.HP will ALWAYS whiff if he empty jumps. if hes jumping in backdash or jump away. also his green hand is extremely punishable… ive seen giefs love to green hand -> SPD or ultra online, and they think they can get away with it because it works online due to lag. offline, this NEVER works… if i see green hand and block it, i know i just scored a free B&B
with fuerte, his body slam is extremely punishable with a FADC -> b&b. be wary though as he can do the one where he grabs you instead of slamming.
for boxer, FADC destroys his dash punches (including EX), minus the one where he kinda aims up and the one where he overheads. for his spin punches, tatsus work wonders and will destroy them. you can also use tatsus for his dash punches, but im a FADC whore. avoid jumping on boxer (unless you see opportunties), and also punish all his jump ins with c.HP.
for guile. his double sweep is retardedly easy to punish. FADC -> b&b the first sweep if you see it coming. if you dont, block the first sweep, and then c.mk -> hp shouoken between the first sweep and the second sweep. watch the flash kicks. punished whiffed flash kicks with full combos… not throws. avoid jumping forward when they do SB spams… a lot of guiles will do a SB and then jump forward with an air grab. if you attempt to jump forward on him, youll get baited and eventually air grabbed. FADC is your friend.
for chuns… keep heavy pressure when theyre down on the ground. they pretty much have one move to protect them on wakeup (EX SBK). a delayed neutral HK will destroy her EX SBK. dont rely on this all the time as the other player may wise up and block and attempt to punish. avoid throwing hadoukens on a chun with ultra, as youll eat her ultra if they know how to play. her jumps are destroyed by j.mp, but watch for her air throw. if theyre one of those chuns that love to do that neutral jump where she does the splits in the air, try to bait it but stand at a range from her and c.HP her on her way down. chuns usually tend to second guess doin that after theyve eaten a few of those.
1 thing for sagat. DO NOT attempt to punish a blocked lk tiger knee… youll get owned everytime. that move has retarded good recovery. if he whiffs it or does a different knee, then by all means punish.
just some of the things ive noticed while playing offline.
This my take on the match ups from a playing experience, viewing experience and general knowledge. I haven’t listed Rufus because he’s the only character in the game I know little to nothing about. I’ll try to finish write ups on most important matches (no Fei, Ken etc).
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E.Honda**
E.Honda
[details=Spoiler]Low short, jab, fierce hits
Mr. DB all daaaayyyyyyy. Sak kills Honda up close and you can mix him up pretty badly with throw, low short, walking jabs and overhead. There isn’t much he can do about it since he needs charge to get his reversals out. Big problem tho is getting into those situations in the first place because…he keeps moving backwards. His nj.fierece has crazy priority and he can use it to move himself backwards, so it’s both a good spacing tool and makes him a huge threat in the air. However, this is one of the only few matchups where her hadokens are actually useful. And they are REALLY useful. The main object of this match is to stop him from holding DB and get him to press UF, make him come to you because you win up close. Low fierce isn’t a very powerful move but it’s free damage everytime if he presses uf. Mix up between charged and uncharged hadokens and try to dash in behind them. The match changes if you get him in the corner so never attempt to cross him up if you manage to get him there.[/details] Gief
Gief
[details=Spoiler]Low short, jab, fierce hits
This match is kinda a demonstration as to why SF4 Sakura sucks. Her normal moves are TERRIBLE. Her only poke is st.rh which has 10 frames of startup and is slower than all of Gief’s good pokes. And of course her low fierce completely whiffs against empty jump ins. Anyone going into a fight against Gief with crappy pokes and an almost non-existent AA = complete fail. And of course you can’t reset him because > if you try a low short or throw, you eat an SPD or Ultra. If you backdash/block, you eat SPD. If you jump, you eat a lariat. Sakura’s lack of even decent normals are what get her killed[/details] Sagat
Sagat
[details=Spoiler]Low short, jab, fierce hits
Basically, the biggest issue in this match is there is almost nothing you can do up close. Once you get through the fireballs, then comes tiger knee and Sakura has no answer for it. All your normals, special moves (outside of ex sho) and everything else get out-prioritized. None of her normals lower her hit box to go under it and unless the Sagat player gets careless (you can ex sho him if you expect it), you’re open to eat any sort of mix up. Let’s also not forget that because of HP and damage output differences, you have to hit him 3000 times to get him to 50% but all he has to do is hit you with 3 TU’s or TK’s so you gotta make sure you make no mistakes. I always think that playing good Sagat players help you to bulk up your fundamentals because you really don;t have any room for mistakes.
If you somehow get an ex tatsu on him, reset him to death over and over and over.[/details] Elf
I don’t know too much about this. What you should be trying to do more than anything else is to avoid getting knocked down. Sak only has ex sho to defend herself with which is punishable by anything on block and if it whiffs. So basically you have to burn 3 bars to have a safe option on wake up. Also never try jumping out once he has ultra, he can run, stop and catch you with it on the way down. Don’t jump at all when he has ultra for that matter. As far as his options on wake up, he has ex dash (absorbs 2 hits) which he can follow up with any dash move. So if you go for a jump in, he can tortilla spin on your landing frames. He also has the ex dp+k which as far as I know, is unpunishable when it whiffs.
It’s also not a good idea to use focus too much because you’ll get dash grappled out of them. So overall what you wanna try to do is space him out and keep a distance between you and him. Fireball, jump back, etc. It’s not fun but Fuerte’s offence > Sak’s.[/details] C.Viper
C.Viper
[details=Spoiler]Low short, jab, fierce whiffs
What will get you killed in this match is how you decide to get up. Similar to Fuerte, Viper just wants to knock you down and spam, spam, spam. Her mix up game isn’t as strong as his but it’s still a huge threat. Once you do get knocked down you’re open to super jump burning kicks, which can really mess you up if you’re not careful. They can either cross you up or hit you neutrally and if you’re in the corner she can combo into fierce thunder knuckle or ultra. Only way out is to block or reversal ex shou. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever tech roll.
You don’t want to be throwing any hadokens either. Her seismos control the entire ground so she’ll hit you while your frames are active. Viper’s seismos set up kinds of mixups (ultra, sjbk, tk, resets and it’s even worse in the corner). But in a way her seimsos are kinda like fireballs because once you get within a certain distance of them being unsafe and easy to jump into, she’ll no longer throw them out and them comes thunder knuckle. This is the place where focus (all tk’s are armor breaking) and jumping (hp tk aa goes into ultra) become unsafe. Another note on her seismo’s; good Viper players will always feint and super jump cancel feint her seismos to both cancel the recovery and make you do stuff you don’t want to.
Once you knock her down, her best reversals are ex sesimo (invincible on startup) and ex burning kick. Seismo is safe but ex burning kick completely punishable. She can also fp.tk but that’s mad unsafe if blocked/whiffs but she can fadc it to make it safe. She slightly has the advantage but Sak has enough offence to give her problems. You either rush down, or get rushed down![/details]
ROFLs Well most of what can be applied to Dan can be applied to Ryu & co, i.e. don’t resklessly jump at him
The only thing that’s Dan specific that you have to worry about is his Dankuu Kyaku (all forms), especially the Light version AKA Knee of Justice. Just be aware that most of the time you’ll be in throw range after a blocked one and in general the 3 options he has after such are; throw, Kouryuken or a small combo (back dashing not really applicable to Sakura).
As for Cammy think one of the most important things is that a blocked Cannon Spike can be punished with a Heavy Shou.
I am appalled at the lack of a Dan matchup. In fact, none of the other character forums have anything on the Dan matchup either. I thought maybe… JUST MAYBE… the Sakura players would be better then the Sagats and the Ryus… but I was WRONG!
goes and cries in the corner
On a more serious note. Watch out for LK Knee shenanigans, it easily hops over any wakeup Ultra and stuffs any of Sakura’s wakeup at the right distance. If he does do a late wakeup knee too close, you can stay crouched and simply jab the hell out of him. Watch out for EX Dankus when spacing, if you get into a rhythm of avoiding Dan’s slow arse footsies, they’re offsettingly fast and safe on block at max range.
Now, this is the only fight where Sakura can out-projectile an opponent, but it’s hardly worth it. The best way to fight Dan is to not let him build meter for EX Danku’s, or even scarier, the cr.mk xx Gadouken xx Legendary Taunt xx Ultra. Watch out for well-timed focus attacks, as his cr.HP > HK Danku punish combo puts him in the perfect position for more LK Knee wakeup games.
If you block his HK Danku at any time, it leaves you at something like a +2 frame advantage if you block it standing. I do believe it gives you enough time for a free jab combo if he doesn’t EX Koryuken, or puts you both on equal grounds for a throw attempt. If Dan successfully predicts a throw/tech attempt, he can Ultra, Super, or Koryuken.
Also, if he does manage to get you down to 1/6th of your lifebar and he has a full Super Meter, DON’T get hit by a Focus Attack or leave yourself open for a punish… or else you may fall prey to a cr.HP xx Gadouken xx Legendary Taunt. You’ll be left a rotten husk of your former self, spirit shattered and broken by the malevolent forces of the Saikyo Arts.
Ah, could very well be two frames. On the subject of EX Dankicks, a long range EX Danku leaves Dan too far away after a blocked hit for Sakura to throw anything out fast and far enough to punish with 100% success.
Well most of what can be applied to Dan can be applied to Ryu & co, i.e. don’t resklessly jump at him 
You should correct Krack’s quote though since it’s only -2 on block not -3 
