In the first Ibuki mirror set, the first round doesn’t end until half the round time is over… and there’s two Ibuki’s on the screen. A character with high dmg output and low health. This can only mean both players are either playing overly defensive, or their mixup games are crap. In this case, it’s the mixup game that’s the problem. I’m seeing way too much wasted pressure opportunities. Someone gets swept and then gets up for free? lol? Someone gets knocked down and then the other Ibuki does jump back kunai? lol? Your opponent is knocked down. You have the advantage to do whatever you want while they get back up. Please use this advantage to setup some mixup games, like I dunno, vortex? Or safe jump or ambiguous crossup or meaty attack or command dash mixups or whatever. Anything that might make your opponent think twice about simply holding down back.
Ryu specific but as I used to main Ryu so it kind of annoys me… when doing lk.tatsu , shoryu juggle in the corner, please don’t use hp.shoryu. mp.shoryu does just as much dmg/stun but you recover/land quicker, giving you more time to setup your next attack. Also a preference thing, but even though EX shoryu juggle does more stun, I would recommend saving the meter instead for dp FADC instead. Reason being that since you’re juggling after a long combo (eg: j.LK , cr.LK , cr.LP , cr.HP xx lk.tatsu , shoryu) the stun difference will be very small (about 25).
Back to xtetsujinx:
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First of all, please stop mashing cr.HK. It’s not a good reversal normal at all. If you’re going to mash something, let it be crouch tech. At the end of the first Ibuki set, there was no reason you should have gotten random U1-ed. The spacing after a blocked lk.tsumuji is not optimal for cr.HK and there really was no reason for mashing it in the first place.
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At first I would have recommended that you work on staying mid screen and reacting to and reading your opponent. This was evident in the Ryu vs Ibuki set in the volcanic rim stage. First round you immediately run away to full screen like you’re scared of your opponent or something; first of all this is a terrible idea against good players as they will simply take the free screen space and you’ll only push yourself to the corner… and then you have trouble dealing with full screen fireballs. You ate like 5 of them before you try to jump with kunai (and input fail) at Ryu and he gets a free sweep.
Additionally, in the following rounds, you basically just stand at almost full screen, clearly looking for fireballs to reaction punish. I dunno why this Ryu decided it was a good idea to throw fireballs at this range instead of simply walk up within range and then do cr.MK pressure. But he threw fireballs anyways and then what do you do? You simply slide under them? Cmon you have tons of meter to EX neckbreaker, and U2 stocked…
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But then I realize the biggest, glaring flaw in your gameplay is that you simply don’t know how to block, and you have a lot of trouble when put under pressure. A clear example of this is in the same round, after you get swept, you just simply fail to block anything after that. Ryu gets like 3 free jumpin combos and then that’s the end of the round. It’s not that you’re mashing or anything, it’s that for some reason you’re not blocking high when Ryu jumps on your wakeup. (also if this isn’t example enough, in the Ken vs Ibuki set, he also gets tons of obvious jumpins on your wake up which you fail to block)
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As stated before, your mixup game needs tons of work. Your opponent gets up for free many times when they could easily get pressured/safejumped/vortexed/etc.
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Poor decision making, or terrible reads. At 7:48 is a clear example of bad decision making. You backthrow Ryu into the corner, jump in with kunai (also a terrible decision, since Ryu could have easily just dp-ed you), and then try to pressure. A terrible idea because
-Ryu has full super stocked
-your health is almost down to 0
Even if you backdashed, he could have done EX dp and then taken the set. Even if you blocked to bait a dp, he could have done dp xx super to chip you out, or EX dp xx fadc , EX dp to also chip you out. Either way, you lose. A better decision would have been to SJ after the backthrow to do j.LK or j.MK ambiguous crossup, and use TC4 as a hit confirm. You had 3 bars, a fully stocked U2, and Ryu is in the corner. If your mixup game was gdlk, you could have done
j.MK , TC4 xx EX tsumuji , hk.kazegiri xx FADC , cr.HP xx jump/superjump , kunai , TC4 xx SJC U2 which should put Ryu at near death, or near death and then kill him with a kunai chip, if your tsumuji loop execution was also gdlk. Also notice how this entire setup is immune to reversal dp. If he were to dp anywhere here, it would whiff or reset, giving you a free punish.
Take note of the gaps and places where Ryu could potentially dp:
-before j.MK
-during your kunai after the cr.HP xx jump/superjump
It is literally that airtight that Ryu can only reveral during these times, unless you purposely create a gap by purposely dropping a combo. An example might be doing backdash after TC4.
Alternatively if the j.MK was blocked, you could have cancelled TC4 into lk.hien and then super. The reasoning behind this is that
-Ryu does not want to mash dp else he’ll get super
-Ryu has to actively look for dp opportunities since he cannot mash
-You have not done lk.hien reset in any of these sets so he will most likely not suspect it
The hien xx super will not outright kill him, but since you still have U2, he will be (or should be) reluctant to throw fireballs the rest of the round to chip you. Not that he would want to risk a jumpin anyways due to both players at low health. So he can’t chip you with fireballs, and he can’t jump at you (you shouldn’t be doing anything but reacting to him at this point, so you should be free to antiair as necessary), this leaves
-cr.MK xx super to chip you out
-cr.MK by itself to bait U2 (though the above option is more guaranteed)
-whiff normals like cr.MP or cr.LK or cr.LP to catch a reaction from you
-wait it out some more to see what happens
If I were you, at this point in our theoretical game, I would put my money on cr.MK xx super simply because it’s the fastest, easiest way for Ryu to take the round. Though you’ll have to react accordingly once you catch onto Ryu’s gameplan. In this case, maybe f+LK option select kazegiri to catch cr.MK and end the round as your win.
Yeah… but anyways going back to my original point. Did you have a plan when you did jump kunai on his wakeup? What did you think was going to happen? What did you think Ryu would try to do? Were you thinking several moves ahead like I was in the above recommended setups for this situation? It’s boring theory fighter, I know. But throughout the game you need to be constantly evaluating your options, your opponent’s options, and what you expect your opponent will do. Jump kunai in this situation is in itself a bad decision because you have literally zero options, while your opponent has several options to end the game and take the win.
I know I wrote a lot in this post but I hope I made sense.