"You can do better than that!" Critique my Cody!

The Guile match i’d at least attempt to zonk close range booms. Otherwise walk him down and block booms. you’re going to lose the meter gaining war. Throwing rocks from mid/full screen helps but unless you have the lead, you have to chase him down.

I liked the j.LP jumping in. stuffed what I assumed was his cr.HP the first time you did it. Then he just went up and air threw you the second time lol.

When you have Guile cornered, you need to get the spacing where you can zonk booms or prevent him from jumping out. This helps a lot in the Guile/Dee Jay matchups because they don’t have the space to properly throw projectiles or reliably get out without taking a risk via jumping, random shit, pushing buttons to push you out, or walk up throw.

You can also safe jump flash kicks after both front/back throws.

You did a good job of abusing as much time though. You may still lose a round, but dragging the hell out of matches like that even when you’re down can work in your favor sometimes.

The Viper match you played fine overall. I’d go a bit more crazy to match Viper seeing Cody can be a bit wild in this match. When you get the pressure going, you pretty much can do whatever if she doesn’t have meter. Otherwise you’re looking for HP thunder knuckle? You had the cr.mk for burn kicks but I don’t think that viper was doing anything crazy to begin with. I don’t think you pressured enough. (any AA B+MP should lead into a dash forward or at least walking forward depending on the character. I at least would on Viper.)

You ate the overheads which isn’t anything crazy but it adds up. I think the biggest problem was that you played too passive instead of pressuring her. Don’t want viper getting too crazy and you need to let the player know she can’t do whatever while you sit there. So pressure more after you get started. She can’t do anything without meter and meterless you have an answer for whatever she does. (thunder knuckle isn’t safe on block/whiff, you can cr.mk random wakeup burn kick. both lose to OS/safe jump)

the T.Hawk match is ironic because you went in pretty hard considering he was a grappler lol. You punished pretty much every condor spire (and the ones that weren’t punished, you were clearly ready with a cr.HP or a s.LP). AA was kinda there. I can’t really hate too much since you did punish most. T.Hawk’s a character i’d HK Ruffian over B+MP just because of the floaty jump and the fact you have to worry about condor dive. At least with HK ruffian you have more active frames that will cover both jump variations as opposed to B+MP where you’re just stuck committing and more than likely to get punished.

that match was fine. I’d just not pressure grapplers. It worked but you were going for combos where most would churn that butter or at least recognize you’re going in hard when you should be respecting that personal space. Use your normals more (s.MK, s.HP, s.LP, s.HK) and use the knife if you want the extra utility. This match was probably your best of the 3.

Knife is nice in the Hawk MU, I feel it’s the grappler MU where badstones are the least important though not the one where they are the least effective (Hakan). Sucks losing out on the big damage punishes or even most mid damage punishes but crMP with knife and sMP with knife are great pokes in the hawk MU and you can do pretty well just poking and anti airing in that match.

Guile is just rough online. The match up online is so different because everything is pre-emptive online. Speaking of pre-emptive, just throw some buffers out in the neutral to show your opponents they can’t just throw random buttons expecting them to hit. Especially in the Guile MU. Also, be confident in your spacing, it’s there. Many times you had the right spacing on Guile’s s.rh but when he threw it out you focus backdashed and had to regain spacing. If you notice the whiff, cr.mk to gain space. Also a great tool to get under st.hp and toward hp. Another thing is just meter management and when to go crazy, this is something I’m working on also because I am way too conservative. Cody with 3 bars is def scary, there’s red focus, ex Zonk setups. There are moments when you should’ve empty jumped ex zonk to blow that Guile player up. And even if they had blocked it, it’s in their mind that you have that mix-up, sometimes that’s all it takes to crack a player. Playing too safe and solid can get you killed sometimes. Also you did great getting him into the corner, but kinda pressed too hard which got you hit by a lot of damaging stray normals. Just sit back, throw some rocks, occasional overhead (especially since he was down backing all day) and staggered jabs to bait techs, reversals. The damage will come in time.

VS Viper, Eh you played fine, again, just got hit by way too many things at the end and it added up. Should’ve jumped on him to see if he had the AA’s, AA’ing as Viper against a Cody is pretty scary and the damage/stun you’d net off a bad seismo, late AA is huge.

VS T.Hawk, idk what to say about it, that T.Hawk was pretty nuts. Just don’t forget how good st.rh is in that match. And don’t rush in too hard.

In the match-ups where you question your ground game/fundamentals, take the character to training mode and just record the button you feel you’re getting hit by, throw feints walk back and forth. Then play it back and punish it with Cody.

How exactly?.. If you mean walk forward crossup mk then surely that’s not really a true safe jump?

The same way you’d safe jump other characters with 4frame reversals. J.rh after a throw.

Unless my timing is off. But guile’s reversal options aren’t that great anyway.

Pretty sure there is no 4-frame safe jump off either throw. In any case though, yeah his options are poor so you gotta abuse him after the knockdown!

Well forward throw walk forward/backward a tiny step jf.whatever is a 4 frame SJ. But that’s manually timed, messing up would result in you eating a flash kick/4f reversal. There is no way we can get a 4f safe jump off back throw. The only way it’d be a 4f safe jump is against a character like blanka who wakes up 1f slower I believe. Allowing him to be safe jumped by the back throw setup.

I think the games been out long enough for most experienced players who’ve been playing to be able to eye ball a knockdown and manually safe jump (if we ignore DWU), 4f’s is quite hard as there is no room for error but 5f+ aren’t that tough to manually time.

Maybe that is the case for you Shin?

GroundedSF is right when he says there aren’t any 4f safejump setups off either throw though.

actually sorry. I’m thinking off criminal upper. My bad.

Hey guys, I had qualifiers this past week and this match to me was really key in my performance because had I won I would’ve been 3-0 and confident in my next matches but I lost and was sent to losers with a broken spirit, def something I need to work on as a player.

Infiltrations on commentary by the way. I know the punishes I missed on block like U2, but what can I be doing better in the neutral? Looking back I looked kinda lazy just trying to lk ruffian my way in all the time.

Man Fuerte is such a mess of a character. I thought you looked pretty good throughout, you just gave him too much credit that he wouldn’t kill himself with EX QB. I don’t mind the ‘lazy’ lk ruffians that much - better to be a moving target occasionally :wink: I think the worst thing you were doing was the focus backdashes in the beginning, but you corrected that pretty quickly. I think level 1 QB (the ones where you don’t get knocked down) are punishable on hit, although I haven’t tried it myself. Anyone tested if regular zonk beats EX QB on his wakeup…? You know what was weird - the cr.lk to hCU not connecting more than once :frowning:

So just too much respect on my part? And the cr.lk > hCU was just mistimed on my part. Nerves.

It’s a bit of a coin flip though, isn’t it? Was this the first time playing against this guy? You seemed to have a read on landing the cl.hp counter hit at least!

Hmmm…

Well one thing you could do is alter your QBomb punishes. LK/EX Ruffian or F+HK - MK Ruffian work on stand block QBomb. You can also do raw HP Criminal Upper which will do full damage.

F+HK - MK Ruffian or HP Criminal Upper are much better damage than reversal MK Ruffian. LK/EX Ruffian setup pressure.

Had a chance to play USF4 on steam a while ago, so I’d thought I see what people think I could improve on.

Few games I played vs. an Akuma player (matches are somehow out of order):

Im on my phone so ill watch more later. However a good thing to keep in mind are the distances for cr.hk and st.hk. An answer for sweep is ofcourse a focus attack, unfortunately st.hk blows that up. Try to stay out of max range sweep you can use f.hk sometimes to go over it and also hit st.hk for small juggle inti mk ruffian.try not to get predictable though as f.hk can easily be punished. Nj also doesnt work against st.hk of akuma. You can try whiff punish akuma sweep with cr.mk, cr.hk or cr.lk. Only works if you keep that max range sweep in mind and yoy are prepared. Something you need to be aware of is that akuma his st.hk the 2nd hit whiffs on crouching cody from lots of distances. As soon as it whiffs press cr.lp into combo. Watch the jumpback fireball, you can seize these moments to gain advantage, jump over fireball after he has thrown it to punish or pessure him. Cr.hk when he lands also good option it gives a trade with fireball but you get the knockdown. cr.mk als works to go under fireballs only if you are closer. Lk ruffian to quickly get under high fireballs and free punish on the ground. Low fireballs you have to make a read. Ill comment on actual play later on :stuck_out_tongue:
Personally enjoy fighting against akuma eventhough he is very difficult to deal with.

*Edit; As Eternal mentioned you can also do lvl1 focus to try and get a counterhit crumple on st.hk, but if you mess up it is BAD.

Use U2 for this matchup, a lot more usefull, which you showed in the second match :smiley: but later on went back to U1? I guess you were looking to zonk through some air fireballs or hit his demon flip raw.
You can also punish his sweep with U2, takes practice though.

General comments on your gameplay. You can try when you are fullscreen to throw more rocks, eventhough akuma has cody beat in the zoning department atleast you can build meter and he has something to look out for, although a little. When you see akuma jumping try to wait until he throws a fireball to make a reactionary decision of sliding under or jumping over, not always try to jump when he does as often you get beat when he release fireball. This guy likes to mash ALOT after you try to pressure on his wakup or after a jumping attack, j.mk unless done late is not a true blockstring to cr.lp, but you also cannot hitconfirm it, you have to make a read that he’ll mash dp, unfortunately you didn’t try to bait it out more often. Definately need to recognize these type of players EARLY on. After heavy attacks go into cr.lp, can’t press cl.hp after, too risky against shoto’s, especially this type of player.

It is an annoying cycle, because you respect him because of his dp’s, you give him space and apply no pressure on wakeup, or very light. When you don’t do it or very lightly he teleports which you can’t OS.
You have to commit more eventough it might get you blown up, atleast throw a rock on his wakeupif you don’t pressure. Can’t let him out completely free. In this stage you need to condition him or make hard reads. If you must hold ex zonk and release it after you do a jump in to stop him from dping.

What i like to do against shoto’s is doing a late crossup mk to make their dp’s whiff or air reset, this guy likes to mash alot

Gimmicky akuma players like to do st.hk after you block their sweep or after you blocking their blockstring into fireball, they hope to catch a poke into free damage, so in these instances you can try a lvl1 focus or cr.mk to stop his advance. End some blockstring with light criminal upper. If he does sweep you can focus dash through it and punish or block and do u2.

I like you challenging with forward or backward jumping lp, keeps him in check.
Nice attempts with cr.lk xx CU when blocking sweep close range.
Liked the adjustment to b.mp to stop his fraudulent ways to get in after having thrown a air fireball or just raw demon flip. Later on he did divekick from demonflip which made your b.mp whiff an dyou got punished, this is why hk ruffian is needed in this matchup, to stop his divekick game.
Overall you need to let him kill himself more by simply blocking after you do a jump in, haven’t seen him anti air once, oh wait at 10:58 he did one.
Reactionary play is good, which you did alot, while this akuma was playing his own flowchart game, however make a read when he might teleport once in a while.
You have to recognize the situations you can use hk ruffian, recognize if the gap is big enough to squeze it in even if he threw an air fireball and he did a demonflip after. In general use more hk ruffian to stop his jump ins, takes a bit of practice but it isn’t that hard, try to keep playing reactionary like you already mostly did.
At 9:37 you saw the fireball and jumped over it giving you a punish(i think, or he didn’t block), thisis how you ned to try and deal with air fireballs, until he shows he’ll do low air fireballs you can keep jumping in, cr.mk under them, cr.hk for the trade knockdown, or even U2.
At 10:45 you “baited” his uppercut, if you bait it, be prepared to punish it, have cr.hp xx whatever ready. Have to say though the akuma shouldn’t have even done the uppercut in the first place as you were way too far away. A better bait is simply block next to him, fake a rock, backdash(this should be done early and you need to be not right next to him when you do it otherwise he’ll still catch you.)
Start punishing whiffed st.hk, can’t let those chances go by!
This is a tip that only works after having more experience, do b.mp against bad crossups, you’ll recognize the situations if they are too close when they jump to actually hit you, you have to use every chance to squeze in a bit of damage with Cody.
Throw more rocks! rocks! rocks

My post is a bit of a mess though, excuse me for that xD
However, hopefully you found something usefull in this post haha.

If your reactions/timing are spot on you can focus the first hit of sHK and then release before the 2nd hit often getting a crumple.

^ this. Isn’t too hard to react to. And Jesus, that Akuma…lol.

U1? Woulda went U2 especially against an Akuma like that who swept at distances that could be punished by U2. And if you had 3 bars when you crouch under Akumas s.hk, cr.hp > hp CU > red focus > U2. He swept almost everytime you did a CU, don’t think he knew the frames. Shoulda baited his 6 frame c.hk with lp CU which is -4 on block and focus dashed forward lk > hp CU everytime.

He wasn’t trying to engage you in footsies, he was super flowchart.

Tldr,

akuma swept after every CU, bait with lp cu, anticipate sweep, punish.

U2 for more utility/punish opportunity.

remember crouch blocking Akumas s.hk whiffs on second hit, punish. c.lk > hp cu; cr.hp > hp cu

So in the 3 years i’ve been on SRK and lurking and posting in the Cody sub-forums, i’ve never posted a damn video of myself actually playing, eventhough i critique other players, or atleast try to.
I need to correct this and post my Cody gameplay. I’m an online warrior, not by choice really though i haven’t made any real effort in creating scene either. Having said that i’m still looking to go to my first tournament to get blown up haha.

Few days ago i played a friend of mine about 40-50 matches or so in endless, thought i upload a few of those matches.
He doesn’t play a lot anymore but when i bother him for some matches he is always happy to oblige. Main reasons i think i won most of my matches is because his anti-air game wasn’t on point, which is wierd as usually it feels extremely difficult to get in on him. And me reading when he would do EX pinwheel. Might see some wierd blockstrings, reads etc, happens when you’ve played eachother a lot. 8 matches, so take your pick lol.
Anyway rip me to shreds, i can take it!

WON

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxP9OEvpO04
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP4lpKoPCCs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBaBpSecw7g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7YGPD8QKNeU

LOST

Spoiler

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OPzI9xgqh9A
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE_rzv1Omck
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp_sc8LhLYY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7fLyDE99Qw

My long break down on how to improve:

[details=Spoiler]try sucking less. Kappa.
(I’ll watch the vids sometime later.)[/details]

Presented without comment, because I thought it was a good watch: