Vs Brickhouses/Tanks (Honda, Bison, Balrog, Blanka, ~Guile, ~Zangief, ~Cammy)

Classic Fighting Games Ultra Street Fighter IV
1

Vs Brickhouses/Tanks (Honda, Bison, Balrog, Blanka, ~Guile, ~Zangief, ~Cammy)

She’s a brick - house. Mighty mighty, just lettin it all hang out. - The Commodores

Brickhouses are similar to run away in that their greatest strength lies in their defense. If you are attacking them, they have great ways to counter you. Unlike runaways, they don’t necessarily want to keep moving backwards. Most brickhouses will want to gain a life lead on you fairly quickly - from there, they will simply sit on down-back and invite you to come challenge them. And the simple truth is that you don’t have a choice otherwise - they’d be more than happy to run the clock down and get the time-over victory.

First Blood
To start off the match, brickhouses will probably be somewhat offensive. They want to get that life lead, plus without meter, Chun doesn’t have EX SBK for AA, or her EX Legs B&B combo. Mid-level players may start the round off with an attack - Rog dash punch, Blanka Roll or jab roll into throw, Bison Scissors Kick, etc. Most high-level players seem to play more conservatively though. Many good players will anticipate you trying to anticipate them, and then punish you for it accordingly. Either way, your brickhouse will be more offensive at the start of the round, so it’s up to you to guard Chun well - and use the opportunity to do some damage.

Without EX SBK for AA, you will have to rely on Chun’s other AA options. One of her best options is JS.RH - it acts as a nice wall in front of her against opponents trying to invade her airspace. It is vulnerable however to your opponent walking under you and doing some sort of AA (Bison S.RH, Balrog Headbutt, Blanka Up Ball, etc) so be careful that you are not predictable with its usage. For grounded AA, S.MK works if the opponent is coming in fairly early, and S.FP has its uses as well, especially against Balrog (FP should be your favorite button in the Rog fight…). Against most of the brickhouse characters, FA can be used as AA, since they don’t have anything they can use immediately upon landing to overpower the FA (exception: Cammy).

At the very beginning of the fight, many of the brickhouses will be without EX meter, which they may rely on for certain parts of their strategy. This is your opportunity to take the fight to them, as you don’t have to worry about EX Scissors/EX Dash Punch/EX Blank Ball through Kikouken, EX Flash Kick beating your jump in, or other EX moves ruining your poking game. Fundamentals will be key here - well-thought out offense as well as solid defense.

Without meter, Chun can’t do EX Legs - so instead, learn how to do with c.jab -> s.fierce link for your damage (note - only works against standing opponents). You can also use throw to do damage, and mix it up with Hasan Shu to keep your opponent guessing and taking damage. For example, if you jump in on an opponent and have no meter, you can try to either…

  1. Throw.
  2. C.short, throw.
  3. C.short, Hasan Shu.
  4. C.short, c.short, throw.
  5. C.short, c.short, Hasan Shu. …etc

Of course, you can also throw in the DF+RH crossup to really throw your opponents off-guard. As always, you have to be careful about reversals, but unlike the shotos, eating one reversal doesn’t hurt as much, which allows you to be somewhat more offensive. Especially in the opening moments, as your opponent doesn’t have EX meter.

A Taste Of Their Own Medicine
If you are able to gain a life lead, you can turn the tables on them and start playing Chun as a brickhouse herself - sit back and force your opponent to come to you. In some situations, this may be the best course of action, as trying to continue to rush them down can possibly result in you losing the life lead, or in some cases, the entire match (coughBlanka Ultracough).

You don’t have to play runaway, but gaining some distance and forcing them to go on offense is in many ways the smart way to deal with brickhouses once you have the lead. You don’t have to turtle though - but just recognize that with brickhouse being more offensive, they will be taking more risks, so its up to you to capitalize on that.

The Hunt, Again
If you do lose the life lead and your brickhouse starts doing what they do best, you are going to have to go on the offense. Remember though that this is what they want you to do, so getting predictable with your offense will be how your brickhouse opponent finishes you off. You’ll have to attack them - carefully - so that you don’t end up losing more life in the process.

Some things to avoid while chasing down your brickhouse…

– Kikouken - Most of the brickhouses have ways of getting around/through Kikouken, especially if they have EX meter. So you won’t be able to zone them with this. In these cases, its best to forget that Chun has a fireball at all. The only two characters where Kikouken pressure will work is Honda and Zangief, and they require specific zones, and with Honda, forget about it if he has full super meter.

– Long Range Hasan Shu - Most of your opponents can react to it on sight and punish you for it. There are much better, less risky ways to cover ground. Even if you go for the fake-out, you can be punished in recovery by anything that moves forward at a quick enough rate.

– Blatant jump-ins - When you leave the ground, you have given up any possibility to block. As such, there are plenty of ways to hurt you while you are airborne, and considering that the brickhouse was waiting for you to do something they can punish, they will take the opportunity and hurt you.

What you will want to do - for now, just work on closing the distance. You can walk or carefully dash forward, with your moments interrupted by pokes and down-back. This lets you help close the distance while keeping your openings relatively few. For now, you just want to close the distance - worry about actually attacking later. Depending on your opponent, you may have some limited jumping capabilities, but Chun has great foot speed - use it.

Once you get within a decent striking range, you can go back into Chun’s regular mix-up game. As always, don’t forget to incorporate the “do-nothing” option to help see that you don’t eat a painful reversal. As these characters can potentially lose big if their reversal is blocked, they may not be willing to throw it out as hastily. Baiting out the reversal is one way of dealing damage to brickhouses - scaring them into not throwing it, then catching them in your mix-up game is another.

The key is to stay calm and not throw out anything recklessly that will lead to you losing more life. Honestly put, letting the brickhouse get a life lead on you IS a disadvantage, one you will have to work carefully around if you want to win the match. Therefore, you should try to strike first and force the brickhouses to become more offensive. But if you do lose the life lead, you can still win by playing smartly.

2

Vs Honda.

Honda in particular is a sturdy brickhouse. Once he gets a lead, its very easy for him to just sit on it and make you come to him. Like all brickhouses, you want to avoid that situation, so make sure you don’t let Honda get in any good hits to start off the round. Conversely, as Honda is looking to do damage, he will be offensive here, which also makes him vulnerable. The opening seconds of the round will really dictate the pace for the rest of the match.

You can actually zone Honda with Kikouken. He doesn’t have a way through it, and his jumps aren’t that good to go over it and towards you. Many Hondas will try jump-straight fierce punch, which avoids the Kikouken and shuts down everything you could possibly try to do to him in the sky. However, it is very vulnerable to sweep, so if you see Honda doing this just walk up and sweep him as he comes down.

If Honda jumps at you, Chun’s jump-straight roundhouse (the spread eagle), S.MK, and to some degree, S.FP work as anti-air. Chun’s sweep actually beats out most of Honda’s jump-in attacks…however, it loses cleanly to Honda’s jump fierce. Most Honda’s know this, so they will probably be jumping at you with fierce. A FA can also work, both in just absorbing and dashing backwards to safety, or let the hit come out.

Before you have Ultra, Honda can actually use headbutts. So be careful for these. Jumping straight up helps you to avoid them and punish them as you come down. However, if you get too predictable with your jumps, Honda can make you pay with his Sumo Splash, so be sure not to abuse this, and be careful of the distance at which you do jump up.

Sumo Splash spam - you’ve probably seen at least one Honda who will just butt splash you over and over and over and over again. Honestly though, this technique isn’t that great. The second part of the hit (the butt slam) is vulnerable to FA, so that’s one way of breaking the loop. If you have meter and charge, EX SBK will also teach him a lesson. Depending on the angle of the slam, you can also backdash your way out of the second hit. This will let you take advantage of Honda’s recovery upon landing. You can also backdash out of the first hit (as Honda flies upwards), which will put you out of range of the slam and again, let you take advantage of recovery. However, if Honda anticipates this, he can headbutt your backdash, so reading your Honda opponent here will be key.

As you know, Chun-Li can ultra any blocked headbutt that isn’t super (normal, EX, ultra). Most Hondas know this too, so they’ll be more careful with their headbutt usage once you have meter. You can still bait out one though, especially on wakeup, so it wouldn’t hurt to try and bait out a headbutt every now and then.

In close, Honda will threaten you with either low jabs into HHS, or Oicho throw. Both hurt. Jumping away lets you safely avoid Oicho. The whiff does have a bit of recovery, so if you jump straight up you can punish as you land. Here, again, you will just have to read your Honda opponent. Lucikly, Honda is quite slow - so this isn’t something you have to worry about if you got in on him, but rather if he got in on you. Ways for Honda to get in on you - jump-in, blocked Sumo Splash, FA dash through one of your heavy pokes, a quick dash after a HHS.

At mid range, there are a few things to watch out for. Be careful with Kikouken usage, Honda can jump over it and give you less time to react or AA. His stand fierce has great horizontal range while keeping his own body and hitbox relatively backwards. Its a great anti-poke move, so be careful of it, but to remember that it is also vulnerable to FA. Honda’s S.RH is deceptively fast, so this is another thing to keep watch for. You can Hasan Shu over S.RH for good damage and a possible follow-up combo.

Honda can have problems dealing with Chun’s J.LK crossup on wakeup, so this is a good tool to use. DF+RH is also okay, but note that it IS vulnerable to wakeup headbutt/ultra…just a matter if your opponent can do it or not.

Once Honda has super meter, the match changes a bit. Honda’s super REALLY HURTS. And it goes through fireballs, so you will lose your Kikouken zoning game (note, you can still throw from full-screen and recover in time to block the super, but mid-screen and you’re boned). You will also need to be extra careful for HHS, as Honda can combo into super from HHS, and that really hurts as well. If you let Honda get in close, your first priority should be to not eat HHS, even if you put yourself at increased risk for Oicho.

On the ground, S.MP and S.FP as well as S.RH are all nice ranged pokes. Thanks to Chun’s ground speed and Honda’s lethargicness, this is like the battle of the turtle and the hare - in mid range, you can get in on Honda quickly and go for throw, low shorts, or Hasan Shu.

3

Space reserved for Vs Bison.

4

Space reserved for Vs Balrog.

5

Vs Blanka

***DISCLAIMER
This is a post by MagnetoManiac, not me. All credit goes to him.

The original post + discussion can be found here -> http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=188304
DISCLAIMER***

ULTRA PUNISHES: Let’s start off by how you can hurt him if he isn’t aware.

  • Dash ultra horizontal ball : Dash ultra gives this autopilot timing. It’s not strict on timing at all, if you’re familiar with dash ultra then you should get this on your first try.

  • Blocked sweep : Reversal ultra this. It’s hard to react to alone, and it’s a must to have reversal timing…but there are situations where it is thrown most often. After a blocked electricity, and after blocked jabs or shorts are the most common times it is thrown out.

  • Blanka’s ultra (MID SCREEN ONLY!!) : Credit goes to McRomes for this AMAZING find (haven’t even seen Japanese players doing this yet). After you block Blanka’s full ultra, you take 1 step back and then ultra for the full ultra combo, no corner required, not a juggle either. The 1 step back is crucial because if you don’t, no matter how perfect you timed your ultra…it WILL go under Blanka, and miss completely. So the exact commands…are just take 1 step back…then let your ultra out. Note that you CANNOT punish his ultra like this in the corner, since you can’t take a step back. If you don’t have ultra, dash EX legs will do. If you don’t have that either, just settle for a sweep and knockdown.

  • Slide : Just ultra if he slides while you’re sitting down. Easy to look for slides when they are not sitting down. Combine this with anti air EX SBK and you’re in business.

  • Blanka charging meter with electricity : I dash ultra this all the time. If they wanna sit on their lead and be too active, throw out a dash ultra and it will most likely hit them if you react good.

NEUTRAL GAMEPLAY (What to look for) : Most Blanka matches in general turn into a lame-fest. Sitting on leads is a good way for either Blanka or his opponent to win matches. Blanka isn’t a comeback type of character, so remember to just sit if you have a comfortable lead.

  • When you’re losing/neutral : There is a consistent way of gaining a lead against Blanka. Chun can get aggressive as long as she knows her own options, as well as Blanka’s. If he does a horizontal ball, dash up, take 1 step forward (holding forward from the dash) and press st.strong. Blanka can’t do anything besides ultra this. Any type of Ball, EX or regular will get stuffed. Electricity gets stuffed as well. If he tries to jump anywhere, it gets stuffed too. So basically, they will resort to focus absorbing, or jungle hopping backwards…whichever, but the bottom line is they’re going to move backwards. So if they just block it…you’re at a mix up situation again. You can either…A) Walk up and st.strong again, B) st.roundhouse if you think they will jump, C) Dash up and throw if they downback, D) Cancel into hasan-shu which isn’t recommended often, or E) Dash up EX legs which is a solid option but only later in the mind games. Basically, when you have the threat of Chun’s options there, she can inch forward and low jab, which beats a lot of Blanka’s options. Then you can just inch closer, throw, whatever. If you know electricity is coming, just low forward -> EX legs it.

  • When you’re winning : This is the easy part. This is one of the very few matches Chun plays like a charge character. Since Blanka can’t make comebacks, it’s pretty much over for him at this point. He has to take risks, and his offense isn’t really that much of a threat. When you see him low forward -> jungle hop at you, just EX SBK and I’m pretty sure it punishes it…or whatever he tries to do really. If they try and attempt to chip you with Blanka ball, you can sweep it if it’s far, if not, then just go for a low jab. KEEP THAT CHARGE THOUGH. EX SBK is important in this match, it’s her only reliable anti air. If you have no meter, you’re going to have to walk away from it, or walk under it. If he jumped a poke and you’re near in recovery, you can focus absorb it and try to air to air the next jump with double fierce. When you walk under, away, or focus absorb a jump, most players will try to keep jumping at you. The point is, you have to stop them at some point or else you’ll get nowhere just nullifying without punishing. Anyways…back to laming him out. EX SBK anti air, sit on your lead, and that’s all you need to do really. Back dashing if you don’t have meter from jungle hop, or just crouch teching it works. BE CAREFUL OF JUNGLE HOP -> ULTRA. That will lose you the game the quickest. If they got that ultra meter, they WILL do it if they see you trying to lame them out.

Random tips :

  • Throw, dash, jump towards with crossup short. This is a perfect meaty set up, and it will beat electricity if you do it right. It hits the start up of electricity safely, and you can combo with cr.short, cr.jab, cr.forward -> EX legs. If they up ball, it goes the wrong way and you can dash up 2 times and sweep it. This shit RUINS BLANKA’S LIFE, so remember to do this very often. The only exception is when they have ultra. This opens up your walk up jump in double fierce and other options.

  • Jump back short against horizontal ball. A few things can happen here. If it’s timed really bad, it will trade, but that happens rarely. Most cases, you’ll hit them out of the end of the ball. The best case scenario, in which have you want this to work…is when he lands, and the back part of this hits in which you can get a free combo.

  • Jump back short vs his offense. If he’s harassing with crossups and you need to get away, just jump back with short.

  • Walk/Dash throw in chains. Placing good throws in between chain hits, 1-3 hits is good against Blanka since he crouches low short x 2 into EX legs. When he knows you want to go for this, and starts doing stupid shit, such as holding up to escape…you can st.strong x 2, then st.roundhouse and hit him every time. Long strings, you know. If he decides to crouch tech, dash up EX legs is what you’re going to want to look for.

  • If he’s almost dead, st.forward to trade with his jump roundhouse. It’s a bad trade, but if it takes him down, it’s there for you to use.

  • Full screen jab kikoken is safe. You can jab the EX horizontal ball if he tries to go through it. If he wants to go for slide, good, that breaks his charge. Don’t throw the kikoken at that point. Personally, that’s what I really want because then I can footsie/focus/jump at him without worrying for a ball.

  • Nemo’s string OWNS Blanka’s options, like rapes it. You can really get in his ass quick with this string, and the string variants. He has no uppercut so more often than not, the string wins a lot of times. Especially if he breaks his charge, then gets confused, and has nothing to EX up ball with.

Update:
Originally Posted by Skatan Milla
Okizeme:

CH Cr.hp xx lp hazanshu is a 2 hit combo, and also leaves you close enough to do cr.lk xx ex legs as a combo with your hazanshu which does 327dmg. Cr.hp stuffs all of his ball except for ex version of vertical and ex rainbow avoids it, it’s great for when he doesn’t have ex to get some free pressure. In the corner even if he does ex vertical you can punish it with cr.rh if he trades/beats out your cr.hp and the trade is in your favour since Blanka ends up knocked down again.
To beat Blanka who does vertical ex, ex rainbow and backdash mixups on wakeup just vary between doing cr.hp and walkup cl.hp. cl.hp also stuffs vertical ball so if you don’t like using cr.hp or don’t have enough time you can go for this, though with CH cl.hp xx lk hazanshu you won’t end up close enough to have cr.lk xx ex legs combo because ex legs will whiff due to Blanka being small.
Only thing you need to keep in mind is that if Blanka has ultra, it’s not worth trying to pressure him on wakeup anymore, but since he should have lost more than 50% of his health by then you can just play keep out to win.

EDIT
Correct me if I’m wrong, but the “Nemo String” is c.short, s.roundhouse, followed by either another c.short or Hasan Shu.

6

Space reserved for Vs Guile, Zangief, Cammy.

7

Very very nice Az.

8

Good as always. I’m looking forward to the Vs Balrog section (not that I have too much trouble with Balrog, but I face him a lot).

9

just subscribing. good stuff so far

10

Good stuff Azrael. I like the way you grouped the chars into categories. The truth is, a simple matchup thread is not enough for beating all of the characters. Besides, matchup threads attract XBL noobs who think they have matchup experience and say things like “Oh Sagat players usually uppercut on wakeup every time so i just block da upper cuts and they die.” Matchups need big walls of text of hard info on what counters what.

11

is there any good way of dealing with Blanka’s crossup into cr. short xx electricity when u don’t have ex meter or enough charge for a EX SBK?

12

how do you deal with aggressive Bison’s? The player Im trying to get an edge on is years ahead of me in experience, so this is probably futile as his footsies, ground control and defense are much better than mine (I give up tons of ground against him, He is extremely good at not letting me in, etc). But as soon as as he gets me in a corner, he just does block strings into safe scissor kicks, block string to tick throw, or tries to cross me up.

Ive tried FA lv1 during his block string to give me some breathing room but the guy has insane reactions and just does PC. Ive tried stopping jump ins with Ex SBK but he knows EXACTLY how to stuff it everytime, and he does. I try jumping out and again his experience gives me an edge as he knows every scrubby attempt Im going to make in order to get the fuck out of there. The only thing I can beat are his throw attempts because teching offline is MUCH easier than it is online.

These vids arent of me playing him, but it shows his play style

Vids:
[media=youtube]KW9JW1Ab7TU&fmt=22"[/media]
[media=youtube]25phetSSJ10&fmt=22"[/media]
[media=youtube]3CbB2O4tkVs&fmt=22"[/media]
[media=youtube]pJouOF8Wv14&fmt=22"[/media]
[media=youtube]5nIuyRrhELc&fmt=22"[/media]

I tried to post vids of him against different players and chars. DSP has tons of videos of him placing because Min is consistantly in the Top 4 in CT tourneys.

13

haha, I was reading that vs Blanka match up and was nodding my head the whole time. Then I realized it was my own post from a while ago. Thanks for adding it, Az.

I’m pretty comfortable with vs Bison and Balrog. I haven’t heard you comment on Bison as much, maybe he isn’t a problem for you. Later on I’ll post what I know and we can combine it or something.

14

no, its cr.lp, not cr.lk.

cr.lk> st.hk is a 5 frame gap which can easily be jab or thrown out of.

cr.lp> st.hk is a one frame gap that beats anything that doesnt have invincibility frames… even if chun were to mistime it by a frame it would stll be an uncounterable string to anythin thats not a reversal.

so full string would be:

cr.lp> CH st.hk xx MK hasan shu >now at +4, cr.lp > st.FP.

also nemo has been mixing up his followups with this string as of late… i would consider the ACTUAL string to be cr.lp> st.hk

also… gouken has become a bit of a problem as of late, i think this character is getting slept on a bit… his damn fireballs are like REALLY good and his cr.fp AA is also REALLY good atleast versus chun… and that counter HURTS… but thats for another thread.

-dime

15

Yeah, I totally agree about having problems with Gouken, his counters make him hard to jump in on, his ultra is too easy to land, and he has got the demon kicks. It is more like Bro-ken than Gouken

Anyway, I would just like to add air throws are great against Dictator. If he tries to do devils reverse and all that other nonsense in the air you can just air throw them.

Works wonders against dictators on xbl because they abuse head stomp

16

Might want to add a link of Magman showing how to properly ultra punish blanka’s ultra.

[media=youtube]qOXEZcVtVPY[/media]

17

First post here though I’ve been following SRK for a while now and thought it was time to contribute something :bgrin: :

I’ve found that st.FP works very well as AA punish on characters with low jump ins such as Boxer (in particular his j.FK) and Honda. Chun will probably be trying maintain a good amount of space away from them so if they jump in they will be right in range of AA st. FP.

A lot of Boxer’s jump ins leave an open hitbox behind his fist which is perfect for AA st.FP as it arches Chun up and forward.

Dae uses it nicely in this video against a Keno’s Boxer:

[media=youtube]xP14b5Pachw[/media]

18

Damn, sick Chun.

19

Headstomp beats counter so it’s nice to throw in (along with some empty jump throw). You can jumo in head stomp then cross up with short on your way down. Works well for me, though i probably haven’t played any really good goukens…

20

Easiest way to take down counter-happy Gouken players is simply to grab their ass… OFTEN.
Seriously… they hate when you do that to them.

Expect entry-level players especially to do this often during wakeup and mixup where appropriate, especially once they have meter and utilize the headstomp like nupoe suggested.

On a different note; love Dae’s Chun. Although my matchups against Balrog has become easier over the past few months, I still endeavor to have my jab-> fierce combos fine-tuned. His videos are a clear inspiration to step my game up even more.