81

Rufus + U2 + Life Lead = Instant Win unless the Rufus player is retarded.

82

I don’t understand how you can condone st.lp > sweep and then complain about her combos into shou which do more damage, unless you’re emphasizing the untechable knockdown.

jp.hk, cl.mk, lk.tatsu, cl.hp, lk.tatsu, cr.hp x hp shou does 414 damage (and is meterless). The combo you listed does 420 if you end with a j.hp, 399 if you end with a j.lk, and 415 if you end with otoshi (tested on Ryu).

If your only good mixups come after a reset, you need to work on your mixup game anyway.

83

Yes that what Im saying. I just get mad when people see the tools they should be using and yet done use em,you feel me? Like you can do j.hk>s.mk>lk.tatsu>lp>lp>sweep. That does great dmg and lands an untechable knockdown as you said my friend. And that gives you more time to plan your next attack.IM not dissing the combo, but when Sak players get a chance to score a big combo I see that many resort to the one you said when your one and only goal when playing her is to land a ex tatsu into the many resets she has to do bigger damage. Thats just what I would perfer

84

On some characters you can do j.hk, cl.mk x lk.tatsu, cl.hp x lk.tatsu, st.lp, cr.hk or shou, fadc, cl.hp x lk.tatsu, st.lp, sweep. It’s funny you bring this up, because I’ve been thinking a lot about st.jab into sweep, and I’ve even done it in a few games in a combo like the one I listed. To be honest, I’m having trouble justifying it though, since shou leaves you with decent options and does better damage.

85

I understand what you are saying however one sorta trick I learned is after the sweep it is possible to trick your opponent into thinkin you are going to cross up by taking a step back after the sweep. Wile this tactic doesnt work that well after a sweep, its magic after a throw. Throw the opponent (forward throw works well), the as soon as the throw ends take a step back (you sort of have to be on the slick side with the step back). This will make them have to guess what you are going to do. While this may not sound like much, I get a lot of players with this and most of them always say I thought you were going to cross up. It works very well . Try it out.

86

You misunderstood what I was saying. What I said was if you do land a Jp.Hk this is the combo I would do. I learned this combo after watching Sanford Kelly do it when he fought Marn. While I understand what you are saying about the combo, I dont really see why you wouldnt end the combo with a ex tatsu when you have so many other chances to add on to the damage that has already been done. Her game is based off being as tricky as possible. Not only that, but you never know when you are going to have a chance to land the ex tatsu ( which like I said should be your goal when you even ask the top players) because its hard to get in when fighting some characters. If I were fighting a Ryu player, He had the life lead and I got a chance to use ex tatsu into a reset mixup, and theres a chance that he doesnt know what Im going to do, why in the blue hell would I use shou when he has to react faster to a reset and guess correctly? Theres no why I would hit him with shou when he has longer to think about what Im going to do.

87

,
Good ol’ ambiguous crossup. Sound advice.

Also, I’m assuming you plink st.lp into sweep. I realized if you plink it with cr.mk and you mess up the plink and mk comes out instead, you can buffer a dp. So basically it’s st.lp > cr.hk ~ cr.mk x dp. Works like a charm.

88

Ok that sounds hots. I have another trick. After you do score a knockdown in the corner, a good way to land a free overhead is to jump away and as soon as you do, do a hk tatsu. if you do it correctly you should land not too far away from them to do a overhead that they wouldnt expect. it hard to explain I wish I could show you.

89

Not all of them. Please read the thread in its entirety. Not to sound like a Skatan fanboy, but he is giving every serious Sakura an opportunity to learn a lot from his knowledgeable and well thought out game plan, and he’s being largely ignored.

This is has been discussed pretty thoroughly in this thread. I’ll add that a Ryu could easily just mash dp out of that mixup. Some will say “that’s why you add blocking into your mixups”, but if you’re just going to block, you might as well go for the knockdown anyway where you can use option selects.

90

i also disagree with that tatsu thing.

just play skatan, shou knock downs give you enough time for ambiguous cross ups which are as good as ex tatsu mixups or even better since SRK are not that good to kill that attack also it builds meter instead of wasting one bar.
The pay off is that you have got enough EX Meter for huge Punishment or safe escape options.

91

I just looked at the IPLAYWINNER tier list again (updated in May). It lists Sakura and Makoto as tied in second worst, right above Dan. What’s worse is they’re only above Dan by half a point: Dan has 143.5 while Sakura/Makoto have 144. Half a point from absolute bottom.

According to this list, Sakura loses to El Fuerte 4-6. El Fuerte? I have no idea how El Fuerte can be considered more of a threat than Chun who is listed as a 5-5. Seriously? Maybe this is based on his new ultra, but I don’t see it.

She has 10 even match ups: Chun, Ken, Guy, Fei, Gouken, Adon, Gen, Hakan, Makoto and Dan. Her worst match ups are listed as Zangief and Blanka, both 7-3. Every other match up is 6-4. That’s 24 bad match ups. :wow:

Rather than throwing out vague ideas about her gameplay, I really think it would be more productive to discuss more specific details of her individual match ups, since that is what ultimately determines a tier placement. For example, since Blanka balls can now be countered, I have a hard time believing it’s a 7-3 match up. What else does Blanka have that so heavily tilts this fight in his favor?

92

My view on Sakuras matchups is something like this:

3.5-6.5:
E.Honda

4-6:
Boxer, Deejay, Dictator, Sagat

4.5-5.5:
Chun, Ryu, Zangief

5-5:
Akuma, Blanka, Cammy, Guile, Guy, Ken, Rose, T.Hawk
**
5.5 - 4.5:**
Abel, Adon, Claw, C.Viper, Dan, Fuerte, Feilong, Ibuki, Seth

6-4:
Cody, Dudley, Gen, Gouken, Juri, Makoto, Rufus

6.5-3.5:
Dhalsim

7-3:
Hakan

93

I don’t think Hakan’s that bad :stuck_out_tongue:

Kind of interested why you think that’s the case for those matchups.

94

I’ve been watching your videos a lot lately; you are ridiculous sir.

Why do you think the Zangief match is like this? I’d think just her great s.HK and c.HP would help keep him from being able to get close, but I’m a scrub, so… enlighten me? =)

95

E.Honda:
This matchup is bad in so many ways, there’s an old motto “Honda rapes characters without fireballs”, and it still holds true in this case.
While Sakura does have a fireball it’s not good enough to keep a bulldogging Honda from getting in, Sakura can’t both throw a fireball and anti-air Honda either.
Honda’s j.mp is crazy enough to trade with c.hp, so you need to react fast with either lp sho or j.mp which is strenuous in the long run.
So fireballs can’t be used as a solid keepout tactic, which leaves her two options, keep him out with normals or rush that shit down.

Anyone by now should know that rushing Honda down is risky business because of his headbutt that can come out pretty much whenever he feel like throwing it out, and Sakura can’t punish it well on block.
So if she want to bait it she has to do it with a jumpback, and if Honda chooses to just not do anything the pressure is over then and there.
Honda’s c.lp x hhs is really good against Sakura because she doesn’t have a really solid counterpoke against it, and the payoff for landing c.lp x hhs is pretty ridiculous for how safe it is (+ on block).
Sakura can force her okizeme on Honda if she manages to score a throw/knockdown, but her blockstring pressure seems really weak against him from what I’ve experienced.
Basically if you’re being defensive you’ll lose in the long run, but you won’t score much damage from being offensive either.
She’s got lots of trouble dealing with a honda willing to sit on a lifelead.

Boxer:
This is a matchup I’m a bit unsure about, when I look at the facts it should be a better matchup, but as a player I have trouble against Boxer.
At first glance one could think that this matchup could be in Sakura’s favour, because she can punish all of his dashpunches on block aside from his ex upper/swing blow.
The punish is better than what most get as well st.lp, c.mk x hp sho or just c.mk x hp sho.
She’s also got strong normals for use in footsies, she can whiffpunish his c.hk/st.hk/st.hp with her st.hk without much trouble.

What I think makes this matchup tilted in Boxers favour is actually Boxers hitbox, as long as Boxer is just moving about he’s actually really hard to hit.
Sakura’s blockstrings are weaker against him as well due to his crouching hitbox which pushes people out faster than regular, even if you land a hit it won’t amount to anything big.
That is unless you land a focus or a deep jumpin, then you’ll get the whole cl.hp x lk shunpu, c.hp x lk shunpu, c.hp x hp sho combo.
Her okizeme doesn’t really work well against him either from what I’ve experienced, auto-correct ex upper can really stop her jump mixups well.
Aside from that he’s also got his backdash, which is better than avarage, and his headbutt to stop Sakura from using option selects.
This is also a matchup where Sakura is hard pressed to get damage in on someone who decides to play defensively.
A big plus though is that she’s got a good corner escape in j.hk shunpu/j.ex shunpu.

Deejay:
This matchup might be better, but as for now I don’t know enough about it to be able to tilt it further towards Sakuras favour.
But mainly there are some factors that should put this in Deejays favour by the end of the day.
He has a good fireball that he can zone her with, he’s also got pretty fast walkspeed to match it.
His mk sobat is safe on block against Sakura at all times as long as he spaces it correctly, which is not strict at all, it also breaks on the first hit.
EX upkicks stops her jumpin okizeme, it auto-corrects really well and just 4f startup, don’t mess with it.
Her best bet for okizeme against him is meaty c.lk/c.lp, that’ll beat any option of escape he might try, but that is ofc much weaker than what she’s really capable of.
To top this off Deejay can force his own xup okizeme without much to worry about against Sakura.
But in the end this is just a battle of attrition for Sakura, in the end she will get in and be able to force a guessing game with good payoff (cl.hp/throw).

Dictator:
In vanilla this matchup was worse because Dictator could just rape Sakura since her only good poke in that was c.mk pretty much.
Now she has st.hk to stop Dictator from spamming it out, Sakura also has the upper hand air-to-ground against him since he can’t AA her consistently with st.hk (trade or lose for dictator).
So he has to rely on either j.mp or c.hp as an anti air against her, both which open up opportunities for Sakura to land damage.
Dictator’s best bet in this matchup is to play it as dry as possible and not take any risky what so ever, he has a plethora of wakeup options to keep Sakura from raping him there.
She might have better options to deal with his wakeup escapes that I’m unaware off that’ll tilt this further in Sakura’s favor, but I haven’t found them so this is what it looks like now.
If Dictator was worse at escaping on wakeup this would probably be an even matchup.

Sagat:
He probably has the best fireball keepout against Sakura in the game, she really has to be cautious about getting in, no mk/hk shunpus here.
When she’s at midrange she can deal with his pokes well both with c.mk and st.hk, her okizeme is also much, much better now than in vanilla against him with the addition of xup j.mk.
She can stuff wakeup srk with j.hp if you time/space it right, so that can deter them from trying to escape the okizeme that way, she’s also got good punishment against blocked srk’s.
Tiger knee is still hard for her to deal with, she doesn’t have a normal or special that she can use to go under it, so she’s forced to block it if she doesn’t have ultra/ex.
Her okizeme is a bit weaker against Sagat due to how tall he is, you can’t be nearly as ambiguous against him as you can against regular characters.
This might actually be closer to a 4.5, but I haven’t played this matchup enough in Super to make that assessment.
A lot of stupid stuff has been taken out with Sagat as well such as his damage. st.lk x tiger and trade ultra.

Chun:
This matchup, like against Dictator, was worse in vanilla because c.mk was Sakura’s only reliable poke.
Now with st.hk Chun is taking more of a risk poking against Sakura because of her low health and the damage on st.hk.
The plus-side in this matchup is that Sakura can bulldog Chun well, Chun has to keep moving backwards to keep Sakura out.
Using hk/mk shunpu to jump fireballs is a great way to push her towards the corner faster.
Sakura’s okizeme is great against Chun since Chun has no means of escaping it, and if she tries she’ll just get os’d and the situation loops again with her closer to the corner.
I’m not really sure how this matchup is in super tbh, but it’s most likely even or slightly in Chun’s favour due to her superiority in the poking game.
Chun also has really good okizeme and Sakura can’t do anything to stop that if she gets knocked down either.

Ryu:
In vanilla this matchup was probably a 4-6 for Sakura, but now Ryu has been nerfed in several areas that she benefits from.
First of all no more srk trade ultra, and lower damage overall for him, his shoryuken is also worse as an anti air since it has to be done late.
Sakura benefits from these late shoryus because she can bait them with air shunpu to make them whiff and get a free c.mk x hp sho/naked hp sho as punishment for it.
Ryu’s fireballs still pose a problem for her, she really needs to be on point and mix up her get-in tactics well, hk/mk shunpu, ex sho, absorb, u1, ex otoshi etc.
When it comes to footsies, Sakura has the advantage, her st.hk works as a good counter poke against c.mk and she can do os st.lk x hp sho to deal with it as well if Ryu is close.
c.mk x hp sho confirm ofc works great against him, and leads to her okizeme which ALSO is really good against Ryu because he can’t shoryu out of it (j.hp stuffs it when timed right).
But in the end this matchup is slightly in Ryu’s favour due to his fireball game.

Zangief:
This is one of my most played matchups both in vanilla and super, in vanilla it was worse due to many things.
Keeping Zangief from jumping was more difficult in that game, relying on c.hp doesn’t work against a good Zangief since they know how to mix their regular/shoryt jump up with empty jumps as well.
Zangief has the advantage in footsies as well, st.mp is great as well as his os st.lk x ex hand.
Sakura still stands a fighting chance with her own st.lk x hp sho os, c.mk x hp sho and st.hk.
In super it’s a lot easier anti-airing gief with stuff like walk in c.hp, j.mp or lp sho due to his nerfed jump.
Sakura has decent okizeme against him with meaty c.lk, c.lk~hk option select mixed up with throws and baits.
Unless Zangief has ex or ultra he can’t do anything offensive to deal with this mixup, and if he does have it you get huge payoff from baiting it (a full jumpin combo or a c.mk x hp sho x fadc etc.)
Zangief on the other hand still has his beastly okizeme, so even if he’s easier to deal with now, once he gets in you’re in a world of hurt.
You can use the option select to deal with his mixups, but it’s difficult to be consistent with it and you still have to guess which side he’s going to hit you from when he jumps.
Overall this matchup has improved a lot for Sakura, but Zangief still retains a slight edge due to this.

96

Skatan makes good points on this. But I mean all in all you are going to have a tough time in some fights. Even though I say she is a lot stronger in SUPER, and I will go as far to say I dont think she is the 2nd to wrose character in the game, you are going to have to work to win. But that does not mean she is a bad character by any means

97

Now THAT is what I’m talkin’ about!!!
Matchup discussions! Keep it up a lot of noobs(like me :D) can learn a ton from this.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

98

Honda is definitly her worst matchup
She still has trouble dealing dmg against good turtles (DeeJay has good zoning, Boxer can still punish hard)
A Fight against a good dictator needs much patience.

every other matchup is more or less around 5-5 or better

She never had much problem against characters without decent reversals
She definitly isn’t that bad.
She has a good defense as long as she isn’t knock down.
She has great offense and combos.

Sure her fireball isn’t good, but it’s better than having no fireball at all.

99

One of the best quotes I’ve read here.

100

Skatan, what do you think about adon-sak?
I personally think it goes slightly to adon but good sak’s are rare so I feel I’m getting hit by things I shouldn’t because of lack of experience.