The only thing that give you disadvantage is knowledge and experience. New chars have this kind of advantage by default.
You hardly get outplayed more than just caught by surprise again and again till you get it.
A training buddy of mine is dropping Bison in favour of Decapre so I’m learning the matchup by default now. Right now I feel it is even and I’m not seeing the matchup sway for or against either character, though it is still early days - for both my mate and Decapre players as a whole.
I gotta say, properly spaced knives are a really good pressure tool. Insofar I am only using U1 against her and it seems to be the more effective choice (and that’s coming from somebody who typically defaults to U2).
I recommend varying your timing of c.hp to anti air, as an early j.hp from Decapre can stuff it (or trade) quite well.
Oh, somewhat unrelated though I ordered the Brady Guide for Ultra. Very curious to see if it has anything I can share you blokes once it arrives from the nation of World Police.
I agree with U1 as the choice ultra. Mainly because it stops her from using scramble to escape the corner. Catching her scramble is pretty tough even with the right read and all you get out it is a sweep for 90 damage, u1 on the hand makes have to respect your corner game alittle more.
Spaced lp hands can still be punished. If you stand block the 1st and/or 2nd hit it creates a gap that can either be DP’d or ultra’d through and if she does it too close it can be DP’d. There is a range where she’s always safe but it’s extremely picky seeing as the slightest step back or forward leads to one of the punishes.
Also since some Decapres like to punish whiffed buttons with hands during footsies, you can keep this mind and buffer demon into your buttons and react with that, teleportxxu2, or red focus into u1 for 575 or bnb for 445. Ive done it before yet it’s hard to say if it was a true reaction or a solid read.
Sol and Verserius say its both in her favor but Du seems to think the exact opposite.
Anyone have tips on the sakura matchup? I’m having a lot of trouble with this match and even when I’m doing well and have a substantial life lead, one mistake = shunpukyaku, shunpukyaku, shunpukyaku, ultra… and I lost.
I can shut her jumps down pretty effectively with dp, far hp and cr.hp depending her distance but she’s still destroying me on the ground. Her focus attack is very good, it completely shuts down our far st.HK and sweep is a huge risk. Once I do get a knockdown, if she does nothing on wake-up except block and tech I can’t really get in. Her ex dp can be cancelled very late into the move so she can throw it out close range where it can’t be jumped over. She can break armor pretty easy so focus is risky and can punish fireballs with her jumping smash move once she has meter.
I don’t normally bitch about matchups, usually it’s more about understanding the matchup than anything but we can’t cancel our dp after the first hit anymore yet she has a massive amount of time to cancel her dp on block… seems a bit ridiculous to me, unless there’s something about this matchup I’m completely missing.
I find using fs.LK, as an anti air to her jump in Tatsu, a great tool.
For her focus attack, you gotta use other methods to break it:
cr.MK xx HK.Tatsu.
cr.MK xx U1
fs.HK (first hit) xx U1.
EX Fireball
MP.Red Fireball
Early fs.HK (i.e. throwing it out there on a read)
If she’s blocking on wakeup, do more demon flip throws.
Sometimes Sakura players will do cr.MK xx DP and then FADC just to get in. I’ve found Red focus is a pretty useful tool here.
DWU or not, I still think she’s free on wakeup. Runaway Akuma is the best suited style for this matchup. Force her to come to you.
I know this exists for AE. Would love to get an Ultra update from one you experts 
I was wondering if anyone knows of a very simplified list of very basic strategies that can be glanced at and used against the whole cast. With like two or three key things that will help your general approach to the match.
Here’s an example. Sadly it doesn’t cover many characters, and it’s from 2009. But I found the basic El Fuerte info helpful.
http://www.eventhubs.com/guides/2009/mar/22/akuma-gouki-vs-character-strategies-street-fighter-4/
Can you link me to something similar, or perhaps someone can create one? Just really simple, very quick reads for each match up. Like I said “three key strategies” that form the foundation of each match up from Akuma’s POV.
Poison is a stupid nightmare online guyz.
It’s like Guile on steroid. But with meaty fireball + cr.mk block string safe against DP (because you’ll drop her most likely or just wont catch the cr.mk). So you have to respect and block.
Unable to punish her overhead, it’s not that easy offline but online … Either I get thrown or she backdash and back to poking game.
No idea why she have safe on block, armor breaking, lower body invincible special, but how we’re supposed to compete against that ?
Very helpful, thanks for this! I usually always lost to sakura but using your advice I destroyed the last 3 I fought! The cr.mk xx hk tatsu and mp red fireball did wonders, thanks!
Unsure if I am playing the match right, though VS Poison I zone the unholy shit out of her. It becomes a slow war of attrition that almost always runs near the end of the clock, but I feel Akuma is better tooled than her to play the zoning game she gravitates towards provided you don’t screw up. You also need to be extra cautious of your trip guard because her c.mk is very good, reaches far and can start her rekka combos which can lead to both a mix-up or heavy damage should she tag an ultra onto the end.
Try not to get cornered wherever possible by maintaining your chosen position. Once you are cornered Poison has a lot of very nasty corner pressure and lock-ins. If you are a teleporting kinda guy, choose your exit carefully as she has no shortage of options to chase it down.
Try your hand at sweeping after tatsu if you can find some patterns in your opponent’s response, otherwise just rip out a DP. EX redball is also quite useful against her. Even if you don’t score a hit from it, it can force her to defend which shifts the projectile advantage back to you.
I feel all of the new matchups remain hazy at best while the new character users figure them out and those running a heavily changed Akuma are also still working through his changes.
Honestly, I hate this match because the only way I can win is straight up lame fireball all match. Full screen away I mix it up between regular and red fireballs up close I cr.mk xx hk DF palm to get away and mid-screen low ex fireballs and if they hit I’ll roundhouse for a combo off them. Ex red fireball is also handy mid range since it will beat her ex fireballs which shes likely to use at that range. If she’s got you in the corner and is using her fireballs on wake-up you can use ex dp or if timing is right wake-up with raw u2 and catch her as she’s throwing it. I usually go with u1 though to punish focus attempts which online poisons love to do… every now and then i’ll try prediction ex df throw on her fireballs. I can usually catch her because I always try to stay far enough away where that’s all the can do.
I view her as a mix of guile and vega, sonic boom like offense with long ass pokes. Boring match for me if I insist on winning.
I think she’s free to resets and DF mix-ups on her wake-up, her dp is easy to stuff ; no threat there.
I will agree those strings are annoying, mostly if we are in the corner she is a problem.
I don’t think she’s better than guile though.
Okay cool, tell me how you “stuff” that ex goddess please. Then you could have a point. Godlike hitboxes, godlike invincibility. Just a pure cool 4 framer. At least 3 framers have weakness on top of them, wtf Capcom…
Also why they gave her a 1 button backdash ?? Like wtf, it punishable but you gotta wait for it, while at the same time she can spam that shit easier than a regular backdash.
If you are rocking U2 there is a range you can exploit against Poison where she can’t press a button without it being punishable or having to cancel into EX Fireball.
Hm I haven’t yet tested her normals advantages. But I will next.
Sure thing is, I can’t just zone and punish her specials, there’s just nothing to punish after the block.
80% of the match I’m worried about that cr.mk that confirm from max range for full combo, mid range raw fireball into high low mixup, or overhead crap. Hard to stay ready for a whiff punish or any opening. Why on earth they couldn’t give those chars a huge recovery on whiff for these bullshit safe specials on block…
Also she wake up an hour after f.throw that’s so damn annoying.
I’ll just play her for some days to figure out how other chars deal with her, and maybe choose a counter pick character that suits me better.
Despite my pure hate of character that doesn’t need to work their way in safely, I’ll do what Capcom want me to do…
I just hope I’ll laugh at all this in 5 months.
LOL, yeah I wasn’t thinking about Ex goddess, you can try wiff DF-Palm for a bait and full bnb after ; I know we can beat it with Ex Goshoryuken 100%.
I don’t think we should complain to much, we have a Ex Goshoryu.
You lose a bar doing an ex DP OS that will do 50 damage if I recall correctly my tests. Because Ex Godess have nice invuln too. That wont help get that life you lost before back. The Safe jump is already a bet, because you never know when you gona miss that frame perfect jump or command dive.
Or maybe I suck that bad but even command dive frame perfect is a challenge. I just find a bit unfair to give someone a reversal that can’t be challenged form certain angles. You can’t even cross up in corner to make it whiff.
I already saw we can palm whiff, but that’s not a mixup if that’s all we can do. I theory fight with good opponent in mind, not scrubs.
I’ll hit the lab more once my App is done.
Most Poison’s are scrubs online, they spam DP a lot and do it in strings all day lol. I see what you’re saying though.
Out of wake up games, I know I missed quite a lot, in fact every single ones, of my far.HP pokes into ball confirm. This is prolly a huge part of why I was always down on life. That poke have to be respected, and I didn’t show it enough.
Posions kissed by
I’ve been getting good mileage out of S.mp to beat divekicks and the 80 damage is a lot nicer than the 30-40 off a light.
So I found this:
I know this is an old conversation but I have also recently been having Dudley issues. I found this if it helps. I’ll be trying to follow some of Forbidden Techniques tactics in future, although Tokido uses cr.hk a bit more than FT suggests.
At my basic level (I hover between 400 - 1300 PP (I’m so inconsistent). My main takeaway is that I should stay grounded a lot more and use cr.mk to see what opens up.