On paper. Sure. In practice, against players who actually know this game, it doesnt work that way at all.
Brocken can actually have a hard time scoring a knockdown. His only normal that does it is s.mk i believe. Even after getting that knockdown, your ‘free mixup’ is totally null and void if the opponent is not in the corner, thanks to the wake-up backdash. This ‘mixup’ is purely high-low, and leads generally to very low damage and a knockdown, or meh damage and no follow up. Its easy to think that he also has a crossup-mixup on wakeup with fly/bombs, but you always block these the same way.
This guy doesnt hit like 'Sim. He is terribly weak. His anti air options are very poor, and he gets ruled by anyone with a fast-jump (hanzou, fuuma, dragon, mudman). On top of that, his projectiles dont combo when buffered off his low pokes, and are generally some of the worst in the game.
Now, he does have some great stuff. An unblockable Hero-Super is amazing in the corner, until your opponent learns the timing to backdash it. He does have a decently easy combo in red life that leads to a dizzy, but being in position to start this combo requires you to get lucky or bait a laggy move from your opponent.
Brocken’s matchups are really what puts him so low on the list, though. Take a look:
Heavy Disadvantage vs Hanzou, Fuuma, Carn, Dragon, Erick, Mudman, Gokuu
Disadvantage vs Kidd, Ryoko, Jack
Even vs Rasputin, Ryofu (this is HUGE for him), Muscle, Janne
Advantage vs J.Max
Heavy Advantage vs Shura (this one is practically free, its really bad)
Brocken is a character with some really strong and kinda maybe close to broken stuff in a game full of absolutely silly and godly characters who’s bullshit make his look and feel like eating fresh cake. His decent matchup vs Ryofu is probably what keeps him out of the tier below the one he is in.
He, like every character in this game, can win. The tiers are not so rigid in this game, its far more matchup dependent. But yeah, he is where he belongs on el listo.
EDIT - Watched the vids. Those players are new to the game, plain and simple. J.Max player was REALLY bad. Ryoko was okay, but did command roll cancel even once, or land super, or counter, and even had the infinite ready to start and did c.hk instead… The Hanzou knew how to do his basic bnb, and use his ABC to try the infinite/lockdown, but had no idea how to use the teleports, tried a random super, and lost to Erick (Hanzou v Erick is a 9/1 if you ask me, that should rarely if ever happen). Didnt see a Brocken. Rasputin would land c.mp xx whatever once and then back off, AND he landed his super, which should also NEVER happen (its terrible, jump on reaction, you have a while to jump at that).
Josh, you should watch those vids. I hope thats not the highest level of play in Japan, but if so, I guess our rag-tag crew is all we have.
