Since we’re at it:
Rog: Can U2 really punish specials when you see them coming? Haven’t really tried that…
Sagat: Tatsu -> U2? Does that work reliably? I can’t pull off U1 that much in this matchup, while I seem to land crossup tatsu pretty often.
Quote off of a recent blog post by Tokido:
“I think Bad matchup for Akuma is only against yun.
Akuma has advantage or atleast even against any other characters.”
Not to doubt the best Akuma’s opinion, but sounds like it’s a bit biased.
I knuckled down and played against some more Yuns yesterday.
- fs.hp is a nice way to snuff out dive kicks provided your spacing is right
- lp SRK between blocked c.mp attempts works nicely (Yun’s BnB is dive kick > c.mp x2 > cs.mp xx srk/shoulder) evidently his mp doesn’t have the block stun it appears to have. Its also worth doing this when you have stocks and he’s trying to mix-up for his command grab. I’m also wondering if we can sneak a c.lp in there during his string but I doubt it.
- Backdash is also effective against his strings and up close pressure
- Air fireballs work great as a way of keeping him out. Last second neutral jump ex air fireballs are also very effective.
Something is up with Yun’s knockdown properties I think. A few times I did flip throw > dash x2 into hk tatsu cross-up and it fell short. I’m not sure what was going on but I had my setups pretty well nailed yesterday (I wished I’d recorded some games actually) leading me to think that Yun might have a similar property to Deejay where he falls away further than most opponents.
Yun is still very difficult. Some games I focused entirely on offense based on some comments Daigo made recently (he feels Yun has poor defense) and got some mileage out of it. If you can get in on Yun, stay on him and grind him down as much as you can while you’re in. Keep him out with air balls and fs.hp. Teleport also works well to reset the distance between you and him as he can’t really do much from say the spacing the characters start each round at. Once he’s in, solid defense is paramount with an SRK hurled in for good measure to snuff out his pokes and attempts to grab/command grab.
His Super is just crazy. Its actually a good strategy to try and bait out some EX moves (dumb projectile use usually does the trick) just so he can’t use it though he gains meter fast also.
I managed to stop one guy abusing dive kicks by not being afraid to bust out a couple of ballsy SRKs. The damage he took was pretty nuts which forced him to look at other methods of approach. This worked in my favour but I still don’t like taking risks with SRKs unless I know 100% that sucker is going to connect.
Re: Rog, yep. Particularly the hp versions. EX punches are also pretty ripe for it too. Sometimes a dash punch is borderline telegraphed with some Rogs too, so you get to teleport backwards for free. Your reactions need to be decent though - sometimes Rog will recover before your U2 becomes active. Don’t for get your flip palm OS too:
Knockdown > lk demon flip palm / OS U2.
To ruin everything he can do on wakeup with the exception of Ultra.
Tatsu > U2 on Sagat works but the catch is that you need to be damn sure your tatsu is going to connect as you need to input U2 quickly. I use U2 in this match in combos as its not uncommon for a Sagat to uppercut when we safe jump. U2 is especially awesome if Sagat is using his U2.
Hey, this is interesting. Does this infer that I could replace OS EX tatsu for U2 ala Balrog?
Because we can tatsu > sweep Cody, this means I could knockdown > lk flip palm OS U2 him like you can Balrog to kill all his options.
Thanks for that EX tatsu OS info though - I’ll give it a shot 
Wait for lollo to confirm it, but I think it should work. I mean, U1 16f invincibility should easily beat EX Bingo ex EX Criminal Upper.
Although Backdash makes me wonder. Does DF Palm OS U2 beat Rog’s backdash? If that’s the case, it should work, I don’t recall Cody having a great backdash.
Still, I’m not sure about U2 in this matchup, Cody has got one of the best FA in the game (and I always find myself sweeping for a much needed knockdown, you can’t really approach him from the air), and lots of his special can be reversaled on block. I suppose it’s fine if you can combo it, though…
Yep. It beats everything. Except wake-up Ultra.
Regarding the Yun match info you left:
You mentioned air fireballs were good against him. His EX lunge looks like should be able to go under air fireballs that aren’t low to follow-up with ultra; is that the case?
I’d also expect EX lunge would work well against teleports.
air fireball will barely work against a good yun. he have alot of tools to avoid that.
i used to do bnb into light dp followed by airfireball(if they quick stand block), and if they don’t light demon flip kick straight away.
always have worked fine since i thought the airfireball will stuff their reversal dp. but now its loss its usage. i played a good yun that dp at the very last frame possible to avoid fireball and kicked me in the face.
so far my only ways of winning is doing a good 2reps of safejump and punish those idiots that did reversal.
i wonder when will yun’s frame data of normals be out.
some of his normal have incredible properties imo. especially that s.lk, s.mp. s.mp,bhp. their distance after block made them safe into footsie range/divekick range. and if you decide to stick out something they can whiff punish accordingly or choose to dive on the tip which is +4frame that i can’t even mash uppercut fadc to get out.
worse situation is i got stuck on a yun that whiff a cross up divekick on me just to land a far ranged meaty c.lk*2 into s.mp combo.
the range is so far that i can’t facd my dp…
yun’s tough.
Yep, hence low to the ground. Distanced air balls are useful provided he’s without meter and trying to work his way in and also kill off some of his dive kick methods of closing ground.
I used a bunch of irritatingly low lp air balls which also worked well. I generally don’t use air balls a great deal unless I’m advancing on people or have just scored a palm or flip grab (tk balls) but I find I’m really reaching for ideas VS Yun. The bastard is just that good. I’m starting to think him and Yang have upset an otherwise interesting character balance Capcom had fleshed out in AE though hopefully once we have time on consoles we’ll be able to figure some stuff out.
What do you mean except his wakeup ultra? If you did the OS your ultra will never come out if he does reversal ultra ^^
U2 maybe?
Sup guys, I was wondering if I could get some tips against Ken. I’m a former Ryu mainer who has made the switch to Akuma, and my buddy is a die-hard Ken mainer and I’ve been having trouble with this fight since I made the switch.
When I’d play as Ryu, I would routinely win, even if it was not by a huge margin. As Akuma, it’s been much more in his favor. I assume I’m approaching this match-up wrong or something.
Here’s what I’m having trouble with:
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Overall game plan. His Ken (and many others) are very in-your-face, RTSD-style. Do I meet this challenge head-on, and just rush him back? Or should I zone him out, since Ken’s fireball game can’t compete with Ryu’s and Akuma’s? Mid-range appears to be about the worst possible place to be from what I’ve experienced, but by all means, correct me if I’m wrong
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Dealing with step-kick. There are a few things he likes to do: step-kick, cr. MK; step-kick, lp SRK; step-kick, kara-throw. Urgh. Maybe I was just guessing wrong over and over, but I took a lot of damage from this mix-up.
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Kara-throw. I know, I know - tech that ish, right? Any other advice? I think the most irritating part is, I’m the one who kept encouraging him to use his kara-throw more, and now I regret it
Any advice at all would be greatly appreciated, I just feel like I’m doin’ it wrong! Thanks in advance!
You have to outfootsie Ken or try to zone him out and stay away from his step kick range. Since your friend likes to step kick so much, make him whiff it and sweep it on reaction to start your vortex.
As for your kara-throw problem, what I like to do is lp DP a few kara-throw attempts to get Kens a bit more scared, so they start blocking more. And that’s when you can start rushing down.
i am sure you guys have seen tokido doing it a few times.
but whats the exact ways to do c.mp os srk? to deal with burn kicks.
Thanks for the tips! I’m going to start working those in this weekend… assuming I can break away from DAT MARVEL long enough.
Just another question, if anyone has any more advice regarding the footsies game: it’s very well known Ryu and Ken have more active frames on pretty much all their footsies tools, and I think that’s what I’ve been struggling with in making the switch from Ryu to Akuma - Ryu has active frames for days… Akuma, not so much. I know Akuma’s sweep is much better than Ken or Ryu’s, and I use cr. MP a lot now as it feels much closer to what I expect from a Shoto’s footsies tool. Is there anything else I need to be utilizing more in the Vs. Other Shotos matches? Does it basically boil down to “Bait a footsies tool, punish with sweep”?
As you can all tell I’m new to how Akuma’s footsies game should work 
He’s different than the other Shotos, at least so far as his active frames go.
^ I read this to get an idea on how I’m supposed to do it
"*To understand how to play Akuma’s zoning game, you first have to understand what exactly his strengths are, and why they are significant.
First is his movement speed. Akuma’s walking speed is well above the average, possibly amongst the fastest. Why is this an advantage? A large component of footsies is guessing what the distance between your characters is about to be. At the time you make the decision to do an attack, you don’t know what the range is going to be by the time you actually do it. If you whiff, you lose. So imagine there is a sub-game is like this: you and your opponent are playing a game where you are both putting down numbered cards face down. At some point, you have to slap the deck. The first person to slap the deck after the total reaches 21 wins, but if you slap it before, you automatically lose. Now, you are allowed to put down any number between 1 and 5, but he is only allowed to put down 1 or 2. This gives you a big advantage, because you are more in control of when the total will reach 21. The spacing game is similar to that.
The second big advantage is his sweep (and to a lesser degree his f.HK), and more importantly how it can be cancelled into his ultra. First off, sweeps are generally some of the longest range, and most reliable knockdowns every character has. Akuma’s is particularly good, having high damage and great range. However, the use of sweeps is countered by focus fishing. Your opponent can start a FA charge, release if he sees you sweep, but backdash if you don’t. Except Akuma, and Akuma alone, can cancel his sweep into ultra. What does this mean? If Akuma FA’s his opponent’s sweep, he gets to ultra him. But if his opp FA’s Akuma sweep, Akuma is still the one who gets to ultra. This means not only are your sweep and FA abuseable to a degree, both those tools are overly dangerous for your opp to use.
The third advantage (not unique to Akuma) is that he is a fb/srk character. That means he can poke with HP fireballs from just outside contact range. This forces your opponent to halt his movement at times (increasing your movement advantage), and play jumping guessing games which could end in AA srks if he guesses wrong. I won’t go into detail since this is a well known game.
The fourth advantage is his air fb. During zoning, if you believe your opp won’t come in right away, you can neutral jump. If he now decides to come in after you are already up, you can stuff him with j.MK or ex-FB into combo (it comes out faster than normal air fb and so can interrupt walk-ins). If he does not, on your way down you can throw a descending air MP fb. This immediately puts a lot of pressure on your opponent. If you follow it in and it hits, they are hit-confirmable into f.HK combos for big damage. If it is blocked, you have great frame advantage. He can’t jump forward, because you will be able to AA, so he has to either take it or retreat (to a range where you will have the upperhand in fb wars).
Finally, a fifth advantage I won’t describe as fully is his mixup potential on offense. Part of the game of zoning is intimidating your opponent into standing still. When that happens, you move in and go on the offensive. Akuma has many options, making this a larger threat. Meaning people will be less willing to stand there, and thus more likely to throw something out you can punish. Thus, his strong offensive game contributes indirectly to his zoning game.
So in short, to play a good zoning game, use these advantages. It’d be too complicated for me to write out a step-by-step gameplan, but basically know these tools, and know what your goals are: to either get a knockdown, to make him hesitate until you can move into offensive range, to chip him, or to punish him for whiffing a move or jumping when you didn’t do anything.
Basic tools you need to acquire to be fully effective:
- ability to punish a whiff with a sweep
- ability to reliably AA any jump-in
- ability to hitconfirm a combo off a descending air fb
- ability to FA charge and release only if you got poked
- ability to ultra buffer a normal and finish only if you got FA’ed
I’m probably forgetting a few I take for granted too, I’ll add any that occur to me later.
Beyond that, it’s just a matter of acquiring the experience to get into your opponent’s head. What can you do that will make him think he should attack so you can punish his whiff? What can you do that will make him think he can jump so you can AA it? What does he do that signals these things? What does it signify he is thinking when he moves this way or that? Etc.*"
originally posted by MuKen, can’t find the original thread or post though :shake:
What an awesome post, thanks a lot for that! Props also to MuKen for the original write-up!
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