I played crazyandy1982’s Gen a while ago and did pretty well against him, even with my Hakan. Not getting hit by mk hands mk hands helped a bit. I felt my zoning game was pretty much on point, and obviously dping his Gen jump got a whole lot easier.

However we had a rematch a few days later and it was quickly apparent that crazyandy either was not really used to ssf4 gen, or he had leveled up a whole lot in the last few days!

The main thing about his game was he was using the wall dive kick a lot more than last time. I know a lot of people say the wall dive kick is easy to see coming, but somehow I was having a lot of difficulty with it. He was coming off the ceiling, behind me, and everytime he hit it was a free super to ultra combo for him. Which hurt. A lot.

My fireball game wasn’t working anymore; he was standing right out of footsies distance, and jumping in instantly whenever I threw a fireball. He was also whiffing a lot of wall dives on purpose, coming right down instead of coming right at me, to condition me not to dp on reaction whenever he went to the wall.

Urgh. I know wall dive is faster now, with a 7 frame startup, but it’s a testament to my mental weakness, that once I have a lot of trouble with one aspect of the matchup; the wall dives, the rest of my game crumbles. I was getting hit by crossups and throws, and losing in footsies wars. I also have a lot of trouble autocorrect dping Gen’s crossup. I only succeeded a few times, and the risk/reward wasn’t there because a connected crossup would mean clk into super/ultra for me.

I know that clk that launches is unsafe and I should punish it everytime, but the visual cue to punish it is so small! I mean Gen just lifts his foot up!

I really struggled to win a game, I tried changing styles to pure turtle and pure rushdown, but no dice. Sigh. I need a lot of work in this matchup. Or maybe crazyandy was just on fire.

But on the other hand, I witnessed a rare discernable level up after playing a tough opponent for the first time.

I was playing a player called Kazzee, and we were going back and forth when he was using Sakura, Guy and Akuma. But when he switched to Ryu, I felt that I was completely outclassed. First of all, his defence was really good, he teched everything, and I couldn’t hit a crossup. Occasionally I beat him in rounds because I really focussed on my fireball game, but at the end of games, his superior footsies really shone through.

He basically opened my eyes to the power of walking back. He would do stuff like pressure off an untechable knockdown, shimmy back and forth, stop, walk back a step, and I would whiff cmk. He would then punish with a sweep everytime.

My footsies really need work. I just walk forward into cmk range and try to hit it, but he was literally dancing. Inviting me to try and kick him. I really suck at punishing whiffed cmks and chks, but that was all he was doing to come out on top every round.

I played quite a few games with his Ryu, and felt quite punished afterwards. It was good that I wanted to try to play him more, as I thought I might level up slightly in the process. But because I couldn’t win a game against his Ryu, I thought that I didn’t take much from the process.

Enter Impakt55.

Now Impakt55 plays a rushdown, gimmicky Blanka which I always have a tough time with unless I use Balrog. I tend to go back and forth with his other characters such as Honda, and Akuma. Now I played Impakt the week before, and I think my Ryu went 3-9 against his Blanka. I was learning things to do in the matchup more and more, but still losing the majority of the games.

But this time when we started playing I immediately felt a lot sharper than before. Against his Honda, Balrog and Akuma, I was fireballing with intent, and playing much better footsies. I realised quite quickly that this was because I had just played an extensive set with a much better player (no offense Impakt), so when I played a comparitively weaker player, my game just flowed quicker, and I seemed so much more on the ball.

Huh. You really do level up by playing someone better!

I managed to do really good against Impakt, getting a unprecedented long winning streak against his Blanka with my Ryu. I managed to completely change my game plan to an anti-Blanka Ryu.

I basically never used any meter at all, tried to build for Super every round, played like a moving turtle, continually walking forward, crouch block, walk forward, crouch block, forcing him in the corner. I tried not to give him any opportunities to attack me, so I totally changed my fireball game to be very sparing and only at the right ranges until I got Super, upon which I would then up the fireball quotient. Super is so important in this matchup, it changes everything. Almost every round I won had a hit Super in it.

I spammed a lot of cmp, and got quite a few cmp cmp chk comboes on his blanka balls. I played safe against his hop shenanigans and dped almost every crossup. All this time, walking him into the corner. Not going for crossups or tricks that will get ex up balled anyway, just maintaining my positioning, always moving and staying in crouch block.

This time I had a lot more success keeping him in the corner, chp/cmping him when he tried to ex rainbow ball out, and trying my damnest to bait ex up ball on wakeup so I could counter with Ultra in the corner. One thing I need to work on is punishing blocked Blanka balls in the corner when I don’t have Ultra. Currently I dash forward/walk forward and sweep, but I think I can do chp srk.

It was a funny feeling turning the corner against a matchup. I even managed to avoid being chipped to death by his lame full screen Ultra 2 a few times. I guess Blanka can’t really hurt a Ryu that plays really tight, doesn’t hado excessively and keeps sticking cmp/cmk in his face. It takes discipline but I think I now have a solid idea of how to fight Blanka!

On a last note, I managed to get some solid Ibuki practice against Baldiebasher. That neckbreaker is a pain in the ass, but it seems like the only thing I can punish heavily since her Bnb into spin kicks seems safe. I tried so many things to punish it, but I couldn’t. Maybe super.

The Kunai setups also seem to beat dps when she flies over you…Hmm I need to practice this matchup a lot more.

Hakan vs Ibuki is pure murder though. So tough for Hakan. She can jump back Kunai all day, and it’s so hard to get in. Not to mention that running ex neckbreaker punishes my oil up on reaction!