OK that Laura did not know how to punish Your st hp. If you throw it out you have to make sure the end of it tags her. If you wiff it from distance she can crouching medium punch 236 mP combo. Be very careful about throwing out buttons and what distances you do the at. Max distance buttons you have the advantage, but past that she can wiff punish all of your buttons.
I’ve played a very good Laura recently and this matchup is very much back-and-forth. Once Gief gets the advantage and puts her into a blender she can’t do much. But also when Laura gets the advantage and puts you into a blender you can’t do anything either
Too much ex SPD, imho. Looks way too obvious that you were going for them.
Also felt the raw V-Trigger activation were iffy. I like my V-reversals too much to just lose them all without a solid confirm.
I haven’t looked at Laura’s data, so don’t know much in terms of the match-up.
I would advise against jumping without a good reason, but you gotta use apex MK and not the splash for its downwards hitbox. And give them less time to anti-air, you can still confirm into standing LK xx lariat
You need to capitalize on the knock down of the EX SPD with forward dash into mix-up EVERYTIME!. This is decisive, and where your game is weak. You lose the short term gains from immediate damage and pressure, and the long term goal of moving her to the corner to close out the match. After SPD-Dash, she has to take evasive action, which slowly backs her into the corner.
Not a fan of any random VT activations, because its your bread and butter, paycheck comeback. Need to use a setup, hit confirm, or V-Flex in the footsie range when you read a poke.
Too much use of the unsafe Standing HP, can’t abuse it really.
Also, I don’t like these EX BD reads in the corner. Too much commitment and far too risky. If they jump in those spots, you have to confirm it, and Standing HK them, or react with a LP BD to scoop.
And you need to work on your extended LP SPD tick. Essential surprise move in footsies. Buffer UP in the recovery of the crouch LP or standing MP and spin and take a half step forward to scoop.
Thanks everyone I appreciate the feedback!
Edit - that thing above about buffering up so you can get a half step before the throw sounds awesome. Almost like a kara?
Level up! Mesenk you are gonna be so proud.
Played some ranked earlier. Focused on…
A. Meaty on their wakeup
B. V Reversal
C. St HP cancel to V trigger
D. Using mp or hp for spd when appropriate.
E. Less jumping
I never ever ever ever get matched with a Sim. As you can see in round one I have no plan. I was real proud that i kept my head. He was so salty with the way it ended he wouldnt even run it back.
Great stuff Rich. Loved the perseverance in the Dhalsim match. It is easy to lose heart after a first round beat down against a difficult matchup character like that.
In the Chun matchup I liked the sneaky neutral jump at the end, showing her something new at the end of the round to win it. I think you were jabbing on wakeup a bit and getting counter hit by her a lot. Good meaty headbutts. I like to follow those up with St.MP even if blocked for the chip damage and it leaves you at a good distance for spacing. Even thought the sweeps worked here, those are very very dangerous when blocked.
Keep up the good work!
Sweet videos! Couple quick questions for you guys, as I main Sim but like to dabble with Zangief.
That Sim never cancelled Divine Kick to Flame, same with c.HP which he rarely used. No Gales or IAT really. Mostly just wailing away at s.MK and s.HP. and fire ball. Is this anti-Gief tech? Basically just keep him at a distance at all costs?
I’m grinding away in the lab working on my Sim execution and wondering how this guy got to a higher rank then me. 
While I know very little about Sim playing, I will say that if you look at round one, he dizzy’d me, and basically just poked and teleported away, which says to me he was playing a “stay away” special Gief plan.
As a Sim player, I’m curious, is EX RBG a real thing against Sim (seemed pretty nice) or did this guy just not know how to avoid/punish it properly. Especially the one I hit in round one. Was there a move he could have done fast enough to hit me after I absorbed the first hit, or was that an auto win for me?
The dizzy thing was a real head scratcher because he poked you with c.HP which you can cancel into MP Flame leaving you knocked down. Plenty of options for Sim to control space after that.
I become paralyzed and eat the EX RBG like every time haha, but I’m pretty sure Sim can just Vskill out of the way and jump in though. Gief might be able to grab a limb if he throws out a poke, but don’t quote me on that.
Good stuff. You read him like a book and had him terrified that second round.
Must have been fool’s gold. If the only way this Mika can do damage is from jump ins. You gotta stop her jump ins, to shut down her game.
I’m surprised she can jump her way to an Olympic gold medal. 
Good entertaining watch.
@TheSupaSage Yeah, when somebody is jumping THAT much in neutral, you can pretty much cHP on reaction for free every time. That’s what I do.
Also this is clearly one of those people where if they either land next to you or you land next to them, they instinctively go for a throw. I don’t know what it is about people, but I’ve seen people play like that in other fighting games. Now that I know when a person is playing that way, I like to go for a lot of EX SPDs in those situations. “Throw this, asshole.”
Regular throws beat my spds constantly, I guess I’m a frame or too late, I have to go for the tech a lot in those situations.
Yeah it is kind of silly. The reason is because both SPD and regular throw are 5 frame startup but we have to do a 360 motion first before pressing the punch button and they just have to press throw. Our 5 frame SPD actually is more considering the input.
Do EX SPD. It’s throw invincible.
Yeah, but if I get it out on frame 6 or 7 and theirs comes out on 5, they still beat me, right?
Nope. It’s impossible to be thrown out of EX SPD. Really good against chars like Mika and Laura who rely heavily on command grabs to apply pressure.
Yeah that’s why I said EX. Also I’m usually doing pre-emptively, expecting a throw from them. If they somehow still throw me, I definitely messed up.
Though one time I swear I saw the EX yellow glow and got thrown anyway. Might have just been some rollback shenanigans though.