Unfortunately, I don’t have a TON to add (ok, the post turned out rather long, but the main gist of my strategy is the same as what’s quoted). I’ve played a few dozen matches against some pretty good NYC Elf players, and I’ve played some Elfs online that definitely knew what they were doing. I also played a top Elf player from Washington state at EVO in 09, and he barely beat me, although I wasn’t nearly as good then, and I didn’t understand how great his Ultra 1 is (he hit me with it more than once when I was pressing him after knockdowns for huge damage).
Basically, I think some of the toughest match-ups for Akuma are against characters who are very fast. A huge part of Akuma’s game is his speed - not just his walk speed, but his general ability to move very suddenly and very far… combine really fast walk speed with the ridiculous far HK, the very fast ex-demon flip as well as regular demon flips which are still crazy for spacing and hard for most people to react to, his other crazy fast normals such as cr. lp and his sweep, and that is how, I think, I win a ton of games with Akuma.
Characters like Viper, vanilla Rufus (back when he could melt Akuma’s face with one or two combos), and, to a much lesser extent, Elf, can be tricky.
I played this one sick Elf at CF… I am not sure his name, but for a while, he seriously bodied me. And I was competitive against a lot of top players, so it wasn’t that I sucked. He could always get a knockdown, and then I would panic and usually teleport, and he would RSF me for like 1/3 of my health and insane stun. He perfected me several times. But then, one game, I fucking blasted him, and I don’t think I ever lost to him again. It was wayyyy before AE (I don’t even think Super was out yet), so I can’t recall all of the details, but I have certainly improved drastically against Elf because of those fights and others, although, as I said, he can still be really annoying.
Here are my thoughts:
-don’t panic. Remember that Akuma does wayyyy more damage than Elf. Elf is a little pipsqueak compared to Akuma. Remember that he is annoying, but unless your opponent can RSF consistently and you make a lot of predictable teleports or random missed DPs, you should absolutely be in control at all times.
-do not get RSFed. If your opponent can RSF you at will, you MUST be wary of teleporting. You can still do it if you are reacting to one of his moves and it should be pretty safe unless you’re in the corner, but if you’re in the corner, there’s a decent chance you’ll eat a ton of damage Elf is chilling and you try to teleport out. Also, Elf has a good focus and top Elf players will attempt to focus you and start RSF, so don’t get predictable with your sweeps or far-range far HKs.
-do not get hit by his ultras. This goes without saying, but I can’t remember the last time I lost to even a laggy Elf when I was drunk at 2 AM if he didn’t land at least one if not two ultras on me throughout the game. Both of his ultras can hit in a lot of situations, so I try to bait the ultra out as soon as possible with a safe demon flip palm whenever I can. The good news is that if Elf has Ultra, that means he’s one combo or demon away from being toast or near toast, so with any luck, your opponent will also chill and you won’t have to worry about receiving as much of Elf’s random shit as usual.
-fireballs, air and ground, are hit or miss. He has quite a few tools to beat them, but they can be a powerful tactic against him if you don’t get too predictable. I’ve won many Elf fights that involved several random HP red fireballs or EX fireballs leading to knockdowns as he ran toward me, then leading to Elf being curbstomped.
-his EX air leg grab thing is really good against any airborne attack and I believe also any SRK when he is waking up (one of my favorite tactics when I have two bars or I’m going for chip or I’m just feeling like a badass/don’t give a fuck). Gotta watch out for that, but it’s very easily punished by whatever you want, so it’s highly likely you can bait it considering Elf has a really tough time after a knockdown unless he can hit you with this.
-despite what I said about RSF punishing teleport, if your opponent hasn’t shown that ability/is certainly going after you with a mix-up when you’re waking up/has just fucking owned you with four straight mix-ups, FUCKING TELEPORT. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been hit with stupid mix-ups from Elf only to realize that I can just teleport and the vast majority of the time, your opponent will have lost any momentum he had.
-be random/move around a lot until you get a knockdown. Go at him until he proves he can defend himself. Like I said earlier about speed, Elf’s biggest strength is his speed/fast mix-ups, so if you don’t let him control the pace (which Akuma has the speed to do), he has lost a lot of his game.
-a whole lot of Elfs, if you stay far away, will eventually jump off the wall at you, just as most Cammy players will eventually EX hooligan, most Akumas will eventually EX demon flip, etc. Even if you aren’t that great at demoning, it’s not tough to hit if he comes all the way at you with an attack. I have beaten many an Elf when the game was close after he hit me with some mix-ups/EX air leg throw things and I just demoned him for 40% after a really obvious wall jump.
-Elf’s normals absolutely blow and he has no great reversal other than the ex air leg throw thing, so if you get in, cr. lp or cr. lk are godly, and if he doesn’t do something random, sweep can be great from its max range as 98% of players regardless of character underestimate Akuma’s sweep range, and once you get Elf knocked down, he is in trouble.
That’s all I can think of right now. Hopefully, all of that can be absorbed into something cohesive. There is no one move or strategy that destroys Elf… I feel like you have to respect him because of his speed and his Ultras, yet at the same time, the key to winning is to control the match and, even if you aren’t in control, to remember that Akuma is the far more frightening character and so if you guess right or he fucks up a couple of times, you can easily turn it right around.