1.Dhalsim, 2.Sakura, 3.Ryu, 4.Abel, 5.Cammy are the characters I lose to the most, someone please give me tips on how to counter act against these characters.
I’ll give you Sakura but the other four I have to disagree with. If it was me, I’d trade the other four with Zangief, Guile, Sagat, and either Makoto or Gen for the fourth. I can try to give tips if you want them.
Balrog-Dhalsim can be a very frustrating matchup especially when the Sim player knows what he’s doing. Your goal here is simply getting in his face. Try and poke at his limbs if he throws him out. He’ll be more hesitant to do it again if your timing is good enough to punish him for it. Sim has way too many anti-airs for you to just try and jump in. Simply walk forward and block, whether it’s to block a fireball or his limbs. It’s a simple but effective way of closing distance. Get in on Sim and he’s church bread and wine free.
Ryu is probably Rog’s most even matchup behind Bison and Honda. He has quite a bit of ways to counteract projectiles, but Ryu still has ways to keep you out. The matchup goes in the favor of who has the momentum. Just work more on your fundamentals and it shouldn’t be as hard for you.
Cammy has a hard time against characters that can turtle well. Work on fundamentals. Most Cammys focus on getting in with Cannon Strikes and crossups. Shut down her air game and she more or less becomes powerless to stop you. Oh and learn to tech. Cammy players sometimes resort to throwing more when a part of their playstyle gets shut down.
Abel can be frustrating to play against, but you have to be calm. With COD, watch whether he goes high or low for the second hit. If high, block high. If low block low. You’ll mainly want to guess high as Abel players rarely do low since it’s easy to see and block, but if you see it happening, block accordingly. The last thing you want is to be caught off guard. What else…? Oh! Don’t be scared of his Marsilles(sp?) Roll. Abel can be thrown out of it. Try to catch him out of it and he’ll be more hesitant to do it again. If you get a knockdown on him and he has no meter, rush his ass. Abel has no wakeup option whatsoever if he doesn’t have meter. Take advantage of this.
This is what I see anyway. Take it for what you will, but hopefully it helps you out even a little bit.
Abel is a case of who knocks down who first - Abel can’t prevent your jumpins on his wakeup unless you do it too late, in which case you’ll be air-grabbed, or best case scenario trade with his double elbow on the first hit (You’ll take no damage, but be AA’d) - Other option is to roll, which simply means you’re safe if he rolls far away, or he loses if he close-rolls as you can hit him anyway. He has a hard time with FS Jab pressure as it hits him crouching at close ranges, stuffs most of his approaches and can be used if he rolls at you to hit him once he’s out of it, in which case you should be crouch-jabbing anyway to build charge for a BnB, or throwing him if he’s roll happy seeing as he can be thrown out of them.
Dhalsim is a frustrating match but it’s by no means one of Balrog’s worst matches - Dhalsim will be playing keep-away while Balrog is a tank - All it takes is for patience to pay off and he then has no answer to your pressure up-close whatsoever. The trick is to remain patient and find a way to get in without taking too much damage. Don’t play his game, learn when to jump, know when NOT to jump, never jump in on him on wakeup or up close as he’ll AA you with plenty of options or even catch you in a Super or Ultra for free. The difference between the likes of Seth & Dhalsim (Seth actually having a better matchup) is that Seth can abuse mixups and shinanigans whereas Dhalsim has absolutely no pressure options for Balrog that benefit him in any way without massive risk, so he can’t rush you down in any way, shape or form.
Cammy has no real way to get in on a patient defensive Balrog - Almost everything she does can be punished and that means she has to rely entirely on mixups and crossup shinanigans, which means you have to do your best to block and not get knocked down. Your footsies beat hers and trades are in your favour. Pretty sure you can safejump spikes on UTK knockdowns, too. Interesting tip (Not 100% experimented with so could be flawed) but there have been occasions I’ve gotten Cammy down to chip-win level after a knockdown. On those occasions I used TAP to get me right next to where she was rising, and raw Ultra’d. I’ve seen Cammys try to EX CSpike, Ultra and EX Drill to avoid it, but she lost every single time - Only option would be to block, which can lead to an almost definate chip win. Cammy is more than capable of beating Rog if he gets reckless as that just plays into her ability to play tricky/mixup/shinanigans, whereas getting a lifelead and forcing her to try to get in on you should see you win 9/10 times.
Ryu is one of the most common matches and has always been 5-5 afaik - If you’re a footsy player you can catch any sweeps and fireball attempts with RH, CRH or FSFierce if spaced right. In general your normals beat his and trades are in your favour. Even Balrogs like me, who have never performed a dash Ultra in a real match once, hasn’t had any issue with Ryu unless you’re being ballsy and eating SRK’s for breakfast, or don’t advance/corner him properly. Any decent Balrog will make any decent Ryu stop throwing fireballs the moment they have Super/Ultra stocked as it’s those rare occasions Balrog can and should land a full unscaled grounded Ultra/Super for free if they’re fireball happy - This makes it a footsies game, which Balrog generall should win.
Sakura is another case of abusing your poor wakeup - Balrog can take a hefty beating before losing to this whilst Sakura can’t make too many mistakes if you’re capable of punishing hard. It’s tricky and annoying but good blocking and disuading them from the same old LK / SBK crap they love to do should see you through. She has no options on wakeup to cope with your jumpins allowing for wakeup pressure and OS for backdashes while you work her into the corner - Her fireball is terrible and her SRK leaves her wide open if she’s not on point with them.
Remember, you’re a tank - When in doubt, play safe, absorb their pressure and observe them, watch for flaws or habits, abuse/punish them.
…seriously. The matchup thread doesn’t have 25,xxx views because no-one reads it. If you post in the matchup thread, you’re more likely to get MORE views, ergo MORE opinions. FYI there’s little to no matchup information below, just my feelings on why the aforementioned matchups aren’t really bad. I agree with the other posts in that he has harder matchups (Zangief, Guile…AKUMA, etc.).
The only character you mentioned that I feel is a trouble match is Dhalsim. If you feel a matchup is difficult once you get knocked down, it doesn’t make it a bad matchup, you’re just dealing with Balrog’s bad wakeup. And in general, i think that’s why you probably feel that the above matchups are trouble. Only 1 character out of the 5 you listed can force Balrog to play their game.
Sakura is easy to beat because she can’t get in without burning meter, or doing something crazy. Balrog’s st.lp , cr.hp, and cr.hk, keep Sakura out all day. There’s absolutely nothing she can do about jab. It’s practical to not get downed by Sakura for an entire set. Cammy has to knock you/down get in to start being able to tk.cannon strike into a mixup. She has to play footsies just like you, so she plays on your turf. Not easy, but not hard. Abel makes you guess, but you also make abel guess when you knock him down, he’s got better mixups but Balrog can safely out-guess Abel, he doesn’t really have a safe get off me move. Ryu’s a 5-5 easy, its and ST matchup. If you lose alot, it’s because you’re predictable and you don’t know what a bad fireball looks like, simple. (I’m not attacking you just Balrog players in general that feel they have a problem with the Ryu matchup)
No seth or gief? Seriously?
Basically what 3nigmatic said - None of the above matches are any more or less than 5-5 for Balrog, so the thread being called “Top 5 Balrog Worst Matchups” is just misleading whereas the problem is with the player. I completely forgot to mention the Matchup thread as well - So much more information in the OP there, and plenty of views for your questions afterwards - Go there and check it out.
Here’s the difference between the OP and reality.
Akuma - The definition of abusing your wakeup nonstop with so many ways to pressure you into a KD to start it all off. Only time a Balrog should safely / comfortably win against Akuma 9/10 of the time is if they are playing Akuma like a regular zoning/spacing fireball Shoto as opposed to being aggressive and abusing his options and wakeup shinanigans on you.
Seth - As above, but slightly less harsh - He’ll keep you guessing all day.
These are the type of characters who will grief you - It’s not that Balrog can’t beat them, afterall he’s a tank and both of the above are squishy, but getting those punishes/damage in is rough going and most of the time you have to guess to accomplish this or just to get to safety from vortex nonsense.
Ryu / Dhalsim / Abel / Sakura / Cammy are all bog standard 5-5 matches except Cammy/Sakura which I’m pretty sure are more in Rog’s favour as far as MU is concerned. If you’re struggling with them as opposed to, say, Seth/Akuma then you’re not fighting the right people playing the right characters and/or you are fighting the other characters completely wrong.
Another example, someone above said Zangief is a bad matchup - It’s one of the few that has long been argued over - Zangief says it’s in Rog’s favour and Rog says it’s in Zangiefs favour - Ultimately it’s just a zoning / spacing game of footsies and “Keep away from me!” - Zangief can’t reliably get in on you and you can’t him, so it’s a patience game of lifelead - Rushing Zangief down is asking to suicide if they’re any good, and Zangief can only really advance by walking forward spewing out light normals to pepper to advance, which isn’t always safe. At worst it’s probably 4.5-5.5 to one or the other, likely Zangief as he’s tankier than Rog is and has a vortex for his wakeup, but it’s by no means one of his worst matches.
For me it’s Blanka, I simply do not have the patience for him - It’s a case of having to lame him out, much like Cammy/Sakura and any tricky character, but I have no patience for it and I get annoyed and make mistakes - This doesn’t mean it’s a bad matchup for Rog (They’re all in Rogs favour) it’s just a bad matchup ‘for me’.
Head to the matchups thread and give the info there a good read and if there’s stuff you’re unsure of or want to clarify, just ask at the end.
If you’re losing to cammy you’re getting too close to her. Keep her at a distance and always be ready to AA with any number of your options. the only matchups there i can agree with are sim and abel. Abel can be difficult vs a high level player for sure.
I personally think gief is even vs balrog once i relearned the matchup. Hardest ones for me are high level seth, claw, and akuma. probably guile or something after that.
Blanka has gotten more difficult in 2012 I believe, he’s really fucking annoying, and much harder to punish. And has that shitty crouching hitbox :[ (found an O/S for him though, all his wakeup belongs to me). Zangief is easily 6-4 on the ground, Balrog has the best tools to keep Zangief out for 99s, I’ll say that no other character except MAYBE Dictator (but he has no comeback factor) can keep Gief at bay with normals for 99s. It’s when gief knocks you down that the match goes 10-0 Gief, easy. His 50/50 is too good, safe splash fake meaties etc.
My two cents aside. Ask some more questions [in the matchup thread] and we’ll do our best to get you up to speed on what you may not be taking advantage of.
Yo can I get a link or explanation to the OS on Blanka wakeup? Thanks for the advice on my vids btw, I’ve been seeing improvements 
Blanka has an easier time keeping gief out. mostly because balrog can only be at a certain distance to AA gief while blanka doesn’t really give a shit. Also slide is a command normal that balrog doesn’t have and really prevents gief from moving forward. In any case pretty even between them.
Also if you guys are having any issues vs blanka then you aren’t jabbing enough. Or there is lag. he is easy to AA and you should be able to just jab him out of 90% of his strings or mixups. On wakeup things get hairy but before then it’s pretty straight forward. Always c.HP his rainbow ball from the right ranges. This is easy to practice.
Also an OS? i’d be interested to see how it bets out upball, rainbow ball, and backdash.
its the last post by me in the MU thread.
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@foxisquick, oddly enough i’m not 100% sure that it beats backdash, but it does beat all of his other wakeup options (including hop). It’s a safe jump with j.hp and a very late cl.mp (i.e. like you’re comboing j.hp, cl.mp). It’s a true block string, and safe jumps all of his reversal options. The late cl.mp will hit if he does ex.rainbow ball, the safe jump will allow you to block ex.up ball, and if he does the hop, the late cl.mp auto-corrects for a hit. You also land in time to block the 5f low hit of U1 as well.
Off the top of my head i’m pretty sure there isn’t another normal that’ll serve the same purpose as cl/st.mp as its his move with the most vertical range.
i think backdash would beat it. I think though just doing like a c.LP os with sweep might be better overall since you can just c.HP all rainbow balls on top of you.
that’s a good find though! I wonder if you just did c.MP if it would have more distance and it might still hit him out of rainbow roll.
yeh, i did some testing, backdash does beat it. Might be possible to just safe jump, then cr.hp/cl.mp or cr.hk in reaction to his backdash or ex reversal, there’s enough time. AFAIK the only way to beat his ex.up ball is a safe jump, meaty cr.lp will get beat by his ex.up ball (4f startup, 5f invincibility).
My opinion:
- Seth
- Chun
- Sagat
- Dhalsim
- Akuma
I agree with most of those, in that exact order though? I would put Akuma a little higher
I feel like the other 4 fundamentally counter Balrog’s ground game whereas only Akuma’s vortex is devastating, but he needs to get it started in the first place.
I’ve always found boxer to be one of the few characters who clean beats cammy. She has a very hard time with turtles. Don’t get knocked down and you are good. Also, a lot of her setups are based around if she combos into mk, or hk drill. If its 2 hits then a j.lk will cross and if its 1 hit then it wont. Learn the set ups and you will find the match to be really easy. cr.lp is hard for her to deal with too.
Sakura also loses to boxer, with another case of just stay on your feet so you dont have to deal with her mixups and resets. I get to play against Sabr3 a lot as I live in PHX and he claims to hate sak vs boxer. On a side note I struggle hard vs his Cody though 
Ryu vs Boxer is the definition of 5-5 as I am sure most rog mains will agree.
Also, I agree that Abel vs Rog is 5 - 5. I have two very good abel players in my area, one of them being juicebox. Abel used to lose bad in super when standing jab hit crouchers, he just couldn’t deal with it. But now the match has just turned into a keep away fest. Again, if you learn the mixups and set ups, you will fare much better. Ropedrink you mentioned that abel cant do anything about rog’s jumpins on wake up unless they are super late. This is true to an extent. OS throw beats almost all of his options. However EX T.T. on wakeup beats safe jumps so if he has bar i wouldnt reccomend going for a safe jump. High level Abel also has his kara cancel at his disposal, which can give u an EX TT w/o spending a bar, as long as he has a bar. The main issue in the match for me is dealing with step kick either on hit or block. If you block and he does the dash follow up, normal throw will beat every single option he has other than non EX T.T, due to the fact that his fastest normal (st.LK )is 5 frames and all his special moves lose to throw. However, when I play against Frenchie, who I’ve played against way more than Juice(doesnt really play AE much any more and doesnt come to many gatherings D: ) if i start reacting to blocked step kick w/ throw he will empty step kick and then whif punish my throw. Thats the main meta game that results from the situation in my experience.
As far as Rog’s worst matches go, in my experience they are: 1) Chun Li, her normals are too good at keeping rog out. 2) Dhalsim, strong keep away again. 3) Guile, AGAIN keep away. 4) Gief, too hard to approach him if he gets the life lead. Once you get SPD one time its over. 5) Seth, mixups are too strong, could just be me but I have a VERY hard time against Seth. To a lesser extent, I would say Akuma and Cody also. Obviously once you are knocked down its very hard to deal w/ Akuma’s vortex, but rog has tools to beat him on the ground. The kicker is that both of his Ultras do well against rog, once he has U1 the match is in his favor because you can no longer deal with fireballs the same way. If you jump over or go thru it you get demon to the face; the match turns into how can i bait a demon at that point. U2 OS behind a late palm beats EVERY option rog has on wake up, making the vortex impossible to handle at that point because you have to block. Cody may be more of a personal issue, but i think he has an adv over boxer b/c his buttons can actually stand up to rogs. Also in 2012 cr LK can punish almost any dash punch on block except tip of the glove straight, and i hatehatehate bingo punch.
That is my take on this, if anyone is interested to hear my thoughts on these matchups or others let me know. I am a fairly active player, but am not very active on the forums, just bored at work at the moment.
The cody matchup is easily in rogs favor once you get around knowing what you can do about his cr.lk since it has sweep range and is 3f. Generally, you stick to the basics, can’t use lp.ds unless you’re comboing into it. Between that and Cody’s bad wakeup, just combo into a knockdown over and over again. He has no options for safe jump, and only his ex.cu can beat meaty cr.lp (i don’t think its fully invincible so a meaty with more active frames will stuff it). IF you bait ex.cu or ex zonk knuckle, you get a free cr.mp xx whatever punish. meaty throw is also useful to bati ex.zonk, since regular zonk isn’t throw invincible, and most cody’s use lp to charge zonk since his other punches are more valuable, so obviously he has to release zonk to attempt a throw, or use two buttons to react to throws with ex.zonk. Its similar to rog’s situation when holding TAP, but definitely in the opponents favor i think.
also with cody’s frametraps, just wait for the f+mp, and then headbutt/ex.dash on reaction to break his strings. He can’t cancel that attack into anything and it hits mid so regular headbutt can eat it alive.
Good advice, thank you. Those are all definitely things I try to keep in mind when fighting Cody. Ultimately I find that my issue with the match lies in my patience and pressing jab too much. I get frame trapped and counter hit into massive damage, or zonk punch(EX fadc U1 is so lame) due to being overzealous and throwing random dash punches. When playing sabr3 i switch to Deejay sometimes because thats one of his personal demons hahaha. I just mash the shit out of cr.mk and take adv of cody’s lack of wakeup.
Balrogs 5 worst matchups
- Door knobs
- cup handles
- keyboards
- writing utensils
- swiping the ID card at the secret Shadaloo entrance.