Dime
6361
Also who are we looking at to take evo/capcup this year? It’s looking like it’s tokidos big year to maybe take both. Akuma is just as good as he was and lots of other characters have been nerfed.
Nah I think CoolKid’s Abigail peaced out Punk’s Chun before that. Which I’m sure that matchup is basically risk/reward skewed in Abigail’s favor. She has the neutral to play it, but it’s not like Gief where your neutral is rewarded until he gets VT1. Abigail can force his way in and he basically now plays like a big body that can play with almost footsie character level conversions. He can do short short and c.MK stuff while also having command grabs and guard breaks. He’s super silly now. Good for CoolKid and Itazan at least.
Punk’s Chun wouldn’t have standed a chance vs Joey. He would have had to use Karin to give it a shot even. Even without Mika’s VT2 he has a lot of right reads, was landing or getting pretty much every jump in blocked for a free frame trap and was making good use of some of her improved buttons. Plus similarly opening people up like a can once they got in the corner and rarely ever whiffed any grabs. Command grab nerf is useless when command grabs have such OD ratios of landing due to the game mechanics any way. Especially when Mika usually waits for you to hit the corner where your options to escape them are hella limited and telegraphed.
He also did a great job using Mika’s EX flip to escape bad situations also. It’s something that’s already known, but he made very clutch use of it in a way that I haven’t seen for a while. Mika doesn’t really need EX meter that bad any way.
Punk finished 4th. Finals was were Mo Joe vs Squall. Squall still uses Necalli.
Dime
6364
Well, I’ll be rooting for punk to make a comeback and take some majors. I still think he’s the most skilled player, but whenma developer decides to nerf your play style specifically, it’s hard to keep winning.
SG was run by duckator using strats that no other val used. Then those specific things he was abusing were nerfed and he never won another evo… or even made top 8 iirc.
I don’t like it when shit like that happens.
There’s enough characters he can play that can cover what you need to win in this game. His Karin was already getting figured out before the nerfs any way and he was always going to have that wall of running into Birdies, Giefs and Abigails and those types of characters have been rough for her play style since Season 1/2.
I like Nemo’s chances a lot. We already saw him just sweep through and take the last qualifier spot at PSX after working nowhere near as hard as other players who traveled other countries to not even get in. He dominated Topanga real early into that year and 2.5 patch basically didn’t touch much for Urien. He’s mostly untouched or has some way to get around any nerf he got in AE, got his AA improved and now has 2 ridiculous V Triggers instead of just one. 1,000 health character as explosive as he is getting a good 2 bar trigger is scary. He performs oustandingly well at stuff even after not seeing him for a while.
Urien is a character that has the buttons and projectile game to fight the Birdies, Giefs and Abigails that have been walling out the Lauras, Cammys and Karins last season. Way the game is going you’re likely going to need a pocket character to deal with Birdie, Gief and Abigail. Playing one of the solid walk around and footsie girls isn’t going to get a whole lot of results with the WWE big boys slowing them down now.
Tokido of course the other obvious choice. Even if he has to deal with one of the big boy walls he can take to the air and demon flip around them. Couple huge EX DP errors he made that gave room for Mena to win what he basically was about to win. Would say Mena, but with the advent of Abigail Edition he could shake things up to. Although Birdie for now probably does better vs zoners than Gail
Frost
6366
Punks playstyle didn’t get nerfed his neutral is his strongest asset.
The dude can whiff punish St.mp xx JFT and anti-air EX.Tenko like no other Karin player can.
He just keeps fucking around in tournament play and eating dirt for it.
I still expect similar struggles when he starts playing serious. Big boys are coming to town and they eat up the smaller character buttons for breakfast. He’s going to have to have multiple characters to do any big winning this year. Karin alone isn’t going to cut it. Especially with word that they made Abigail harder to whiff punish. Good luck.
Chun Li got better, but still too honest to solely use in tournament (and get 1st place) vs the shit that’s bout to get real big now.
yeah punk was experimenting with punishes and strings and shit during the tournament like it was online
kinda wish he didnt but it was kind of funny still
Anyone down to play a few games?
Frost
6371
Karin has one of the best Abigail whiff punishes in the game
St.hp > EX.dash > cr.mp can full punish him for whiffing a button. It can clip st.hp and cr.mp when whiffed from a safe range.
True, but that’s one of the slower buttons to have to whiff punish with vs a character that’s supposedly harder to do it with. I can’t see that working all day vs Abigail and Birdie has already shown that he just wins the neutral vs her as it is. Birdie also being able to throw around shit that’s hard to whiff punish and can lay traps in the range that she’s normally good in (which sets her up for grabs and free willy).
In general he’s just going to have to have other characters to win this year.
Karin stands no chance
THE AGE OF ABIGAIL HAS BEGUN
Dime
6374
Karin’s neutral tools in her st.mk and st.hk we’re both nerfed, and his strat that he made popular of abusing the corner jab reset (not saying he made it up) was also nerfed big time and are both huge components of his game.
He was also a throw loop specialist and jab AA player, but once can’t really say that those were aimed at him specifically because they weren’t (and the Karin stuff might not be was well) but his playstyle definitely took some huge hits if you look at the things that he abused and largely got him wins, that are no longer around.
@“DevilJin 01”
Yeah I agree with basically all of that. Punk was definitely getting figured out, though I wouldn’t say that was all there was to it.
Idk if the big bodies can consistently take it all as far as one character is concerned, but there are so many now that it is definitely a threat to see one or 2 of em to get top 8 consistently.
I wonder why punk doesn’t just keep his nash around for those matchups.
Personally I think the meta thing for him to do would be to develop a guile. He goes good against birdie and akuma which are both 2 of punks personal demons in mena and tokido.
That’s the interesting thing about the big bodies is that Mena just took it hard to Daigo at CPT. He was ready for a lot of the normal Guile scenarios and whenever he did land a hit or command grab it leads to corner pressure where Daigo was just too scared to do anything. Like even vs the shit that Birdie should be losing to, Mena finds a way to hold his own at least for now. Maybe Menat’s orb neutral should help calm things down, but Mena is also someone who is said to have a lot of characters so he’s up in the air with how he could counter as well
Nash should already fit the bill for Punk if he wants to invest more time into him. I think Guile would just be adding another character to his plate to do stuff that Nash would already be good for. Wouldn’t hurt though.
Alkipot
6377
Anyone complaining about Abigail, just pick up Akuma, Menat, Urien, Rashid, Guile or Ed ffs. A bronze ranked Akuma can literally win off of jump fireballs.
Dime
6378
Can’t abby just v skill those fireballs? Also, Abby is pretty tall so shouldn’t akuma have less frame advantage on blocked airfireball against Abby thrown late and fewer combo options if they are thrown early/high?
I have major problems dealing with Akumas air fireball and demonflip vt airfireballs as well so I know the struggle.
Most Akumas I play against just wiff buffer footsies and throw ground fireballs and setup the airfireball jumpin, rinse and repeat with BHP AA thrown in.
Ibuki and Juri have good options around Akumas air stuff so if an Akuma beats me they pretty much have to win from the ground. I try to stay close enough to threaten an air throw on any desperate attempts as well.
Counter picking the Abigails online isn’t a bad strat except you cant switch characters in casual or ranked so you’d be force to learn every match up with whoever you want to counter pick with. Vs CPT level Abigsils he’s still very explosive and can likely win even his hard matches (like Birdie) with enough reads and command grabs.
That was cool Joe vs Chris G in a nutshell. Chris G gets 70 percent life lead in first 30 seconds of round. CoolJoe pops v trigger gets really angry and puts Chris in the corner. 20 seconds later he’s dead.
Alkipot
6380
Akuma jumping at you is a mixup in itself as Abigail. Will he jump with a normal or fireball? Vskill timing is different for each.
I’ll lab it and see, but it seems like Akuma is plus on block after air fireball on Abigail. My buttons don’t seem to beat his at all.
