USF4 Ken Match-up Thread: Updating 1st Post Edition!

Blanka: jab him out of his horizontal rolls, if he doesnt have meter you can try j.LK crossup, if he has meter you can do empty jump block to bait out upballs. sweep his slow recovery normals, and if you block a slide punish with low forward into HK tatsu. If blanka does U2 fullscreen chip, jump forward and EX tatsu to neutralize it on the first shockwave, then mix him up etc. If you can frustrate him and make him jump, makes your day easier with AA.
Sagat: don’t jump unless you can make a good read on his fb pattern, crouch and inch forward with fireballs and normals, if you block any normal tiger knees and you block 2 hits you can punish it on block with HP srk, low strong to beat out his mid height pokes, sweep his whiffed low kicks because the recovery is terrible. I usually do the unblockable crossup mk on him for mixups and not HP because you can get DPed out of the HP unless you hit crossup and land crossup. frustrate him, make him jump AA him all day.
Deejay: the key is to be on point with your AA’s cuz that knee he does comes out fast. G77’s FTK meaty setup works wonders against deejay. Crossups don’t work against deejay since his upkick is too fast. Don’t use sweep too much for whiff punish because its really hard to whiff punish his fast normals
Guile: grind it out and capitalize on his mistakes

Hey guys, I lost terribly to CJtruth at the local ranbat yesterday. How do you deal with Fei?
I tried stuffing rekka with low forward, but it’s not that great. Low strong is better, but CJ could easily whiff punish me since he punished my low forwards pretty convincingly too… Halp?

you can focus rekkas, and funny enough you can easily throw them too.

You can sweep him out of rekkas as well.

You two make it sound so easy. Yeah you CAN do those things but what’s it matter if he doesn’t whiff rekkas? 1st rekka is safe, 2nd rekka if done deep is -6 I believe. So cr.forward xx special or just f.srk good way to punish.

I’ve come to the conclusion that this match is all footsies and good reads. I look for chicken wing and I still can’t anti-air that, I won’t say impossible but holy shit it’s hard. Fuck Fei Long.

It all depends on how prone they are to using rekkas. It’s easy when you get their pattern down. Fei is my alt,so I usually don’t have a problem figuring that match out. lol. I prefer to get the knock down on fei to start mixing him up.

Yeah, not to put your suggestions guys, but those tricks sound like they’d only work once on a FT5 or even FT10. Bad Feis aren’t my problem…
I felt that CJ wasn’t really rekka heavy against me, he just KNEW when to rekka me. In the corner specially, I got owned for throwing out low forward when he was right outside the range to punish me with crouch fierce. I wish I had XBL to play him more.

Yeah he’s reacting to your whiffed moves and punishing them with like, cr.jab rekkax3. or cr.fierce. not just throwing that shit out. And Focus has to be near level two, then absorb a hit and release all practically at the same time or the 2nd rekka just hits and you lose more health. His normals are one of the bigger problems, that and chicken wing.

it doesn’t have to be near level 2 you can do it on reaction and beat the 2nd rekka by just releasing it then you get counter hit and he crumples.

Hm, unless you’re saying press and release focus reacting to rekka I haven’t had consistent luck stopping raw rekkas with Focus.

Focusing rekkas is not that great I personally always look for it when I play fei. Ken focus is too slow to be used like that a good fei would hit u before u realease (or worse while ur releasing it). If u do do it only do it every once in a while. IMO neutral jump is the best solution to rekkas and punishing whenevrr u can to make him rethink his spacing. Throwing out noramls (unless its like a jab which belive it or not I have been stopped by while playing fei and using ken against fei) and using focus trying to predict rekkas is just asking to lose life.
And for the above post about guile blanka and deejay. Vs guile play the fireball game when he is out of his normal and jump range. Make sure ur footsies is on point a sweep should be the start of ur offense. I no its scrubby but I damn near spam sweep vs guile if I see him twich I sweep then when I get that knock down I put that j.lk right on his head I don’t even worry bout flash kick its such a horrible move. Also on the ground a kara focus every once in a while.
Vs blanka jab the balls or dp them if ur feeling good, u will get a full ultra if ur good. Too many blanka’s get away jump ins dp that shit. Always watch the charge u should play differently when he has it especially when he is in the range where it would be very hard to react to blanka balls. If u see him use ex for have screen or more especially if u have been throwing firballs, just dp. Play defensively when ur not on his ass. Ur goal is to put him in the corner and rush his ass down whenever ur on him and os sweep, unless ur in the corner then u want to os dp or os c.hp the only thing u have to worry about is reversal ultras. O and watch the hop/dash just react to it and mash jab. U could time ur jumpins to be able the block the reversal up balls and punish it with ex tatsu. U can interupt his u1 when he is coming down from the hop. Vs fulscreen u2 jump forward then step kick. And lastly walk forward and block low when ur trying to get in on him cuz slide is fucking annoying.
Vs dejay just Rush his ass down he has no good reversals except u1 and react to his jumps and jump knee with dp focus in his sweep range and jumpover his fb’s but don’t press anything unless u predicted it. Don’t try to jump on him on his wakeup stick to the ground.
Vs sagat watch the tiger knees the really good at keeping people out, and watch jumping in on him he could easily talk haly ur life even if ur half screen away. Sagat and t. Hawk are my worse matchups so I don’t have much to say about it but I have noticed that sweeping when ur in range is amazing sagats seem to almost spam normals to keep ken out. And watch the whiff forward.rh into dp its a dumb ass gimmick that would have u lose ur round.

like i said if you focus and immediately release it beats the second rekka and gets counter hit and he ends up crumpling, but i’ll definitely agree with you that neutral jumping is the best solution.

Guys, your first page post on Makoto says jump at her a lot, which is retarded. She juggles for 300+ damage with an almost unbeatable uppercut for no meter. You have to jump from the absolute max range if she’s standing or safe jump her on wakeup. Her uppercut has no left/right bias, will hit any crossup and set up a juggle. It will also juggle you for even more damage off a trade.

Any 5-frame safe jump setup on her wakeup will work. Crossup tatsus are risky. If you can safe jump ambiguous fierce, that would be perfect.

That match-up was written for Super Makoto, not AE Makoto. All of these except for the four newest characters are probably for the Super iterations of each character.

Jumping in at Makoto removed.

I’ve played quite a lot of really good Makoto’s and you CAN still jump in on her.

My current technique is to step back JUST a tiny bit further back than you would for Ken’s cross-up fierce punch. Time it as normal, no need to go earlier than normal. If Makoto tries to do her up punch, it will whiff and you can punish accordingly.

The hit box on her up punch is awesome at the back and it will destroy ANY cross-up shenanys but it is not good for normal jump ins.

I use this jump in and I OS a sweep to shut down almost everything Makoto has and force her to block on wake-up. Once you’ve got her afraid to do anything at all on wake-up, you can risk the cross-up air tatsu, but it’s soooo risky considering the damage she can get from 1 right guess.

Hope this helps,

Peace,

G.

Moved to SSF4 AE Ken Match-up Thread

G77, I’m having trouble recreating that distance you are talking about for normal jump in fierce punch that makes her up punch whiff. I think I got the spacing down, maybe its the timing?

On a similar note, if I can nail this down, then I am going to see if OS EX Tatsu will beat out her options. So far with standard unblockable crossups OS EX tatsu, makoto’s EX oroshi, normal oroshi, EX command grab, dash back all get beat clean. The Ex tatsu hits the EX oroshi before invincibility kicks in. I think it loses to ultra though. I’m guessing normal jump in OS Ex tatsu should do the trick.

I may have mistyped earlier. The timing is slightly earlier (nearer to safe jump timing) and the spacing is slightly further back.

I had no real trouble recreating it today. If you get it right, you’ll either beat her fukiage clean or it will whiff.

I have been OS’ing sweep behind it. This beats all her options I think, even the EX oroshi isn’t fast enough.

Hope this helps…

Peace,

G.

Back on the salt I’m afraid. Just fought an Ibuki player who constantly crossed me up for almost perfect victories. To be honest I’m getting mixed up constantly and failing to block anyone’s moves. Totally losing the plot here. I’ve also noticed my PP fluctuates quite a lot and never stays about the same. I’ve been 2800pp then down to 1800pp in a matter of days. When I’m on form I’m definitely an above average player but I seriously lack consistency of not just moves and combos, but mental mind games.

Back to the point, how do you defend against someone who is very aggressive? What’s the best way to play them?