The main reason we are falling behind the rest of the world in SSF4 apart from the smaller player base is that most of the players are playing this game in a very basic way, and that style can’t cut it in this day of SSF4 if you want to be able to compete with top players around the world.

I will write a bit about different thing I notice people in Melbourne in general are lacking each day or two, my goal is to make you guys understand about each concept and how important it is to implement them into your game so you will be able to compete in higher level play.

Today I will start off with the mind games revolving around close combat.

I’m not too good at writing so if you get a bit confused, you can post a question or you can always ask me when you see me to clarify somethings since it may be easier to understand in real life.

#1 YOU MUST LEARN THE OPTIONS BASED AROUND CLOSE COMBAT
(I will use Ryu for these examples below since everyone knows Ryu)

For example in Melbourne i see most people do a basic block string and finish it with a tick throw or do something for example with ryu and do c.lp, c.lp, c.lp, c.mk > fireball to push the opponent out.

If you keep doing a block string into throw every time against someone who knows how to crouch tech, it’s going to be too hard to get a throw on them since you are not mixing up your block string, and if your doing a block string just for the sake of pushing them out, your wasting an opportunity, doing a block string for no reason doesn’t achieve anything, it’s your chance to deal damage to your opponent.

What you should be doing is mixing up your block strings so your opponent has to guess, e.g

HOW TO BEAT DELAYED CROUCH TECH

To beat someone who does delayed crouch tech you can do for example [c.lp, c.lp, walk up, c.mp+lp+lk] [c.lp, stand up, c.mp+lp+lk] (if you LP + LK while doing your c.mp, if they go to throw you, you will tech)

If you timed it right and opponent went to crouch tech you will get counter hit on him and then you are able to confirm into a combo, so once your opponent sees that you are able to beat delayed crouch tech hes going to be more scared to just spam crouch tech because he knows your able to beat it so then you will be also able to start landing throws on him.

HOW TO BEAT SOMEONE WHO’S GOING FOR A SETUP TO BREAK CROUCH TECH

If the defender believes you are going for block string that beats delay crouch tech, then he can mash on a quick start up move like a c.lp which will beat that setup since you will hit him while hes walking over to you.

HOW TO BEAT A JAB SPAMMER

If the attacker thinks your going to do that he can do a “frame trap” for example c.lp, slight pause , c.mp, which you time so it leaves a 1-2 frame gap for him to stick out a normal, if he went to spam c.lp you will score a counter hit on him.

HOW TO BEAT STAND TECH

If your opponent uses stand tech instead of crouch tech you have to do different things to beat that, eg [c.lp, c.lp walk up uppercut] any type of move that has invincible start up will beat throw e.g DP type of moves

But this is very risky if they block it they will be able to punish you, so mostly use this when you have 2 meters so you can cancel in case they block it

another way to beat someone who stand tech is by using dive kicks e.g Cammy and Rufus, do block string walk up a little bit then do a dive kick, If you dont use those character though you can also do something else

e.g c.lp, c.lp, walk back (they have the whiff throw animation) then you can just punish their whiff animation with what ever you want

HOW TO BEAT SOMEONE WHO TRIES TO REVERSAL YOU WITH AN INVINCIBLE START UP TYPE OF MOVE EG SHORYUKEN OR EX SPINNING BIRD KICK

simply do a string with no gaps in between e.g c.lp, c.lp then just crouch block, or if the opponent is the type that will uppercut only when your a bit closer, after your string walk up slightly then crouch block

IF YOU’RE A BIT CONFUSED ABOUT WHAT I HAVE WROTE AND ARE VS’ING SOMEONE WHO MAINLY DELAY CROUCH TECHS HERE’S A QUICK REFERENCE TABLE OF THE MIND GAME

Frame traps > Normal spamming
Normal spamming > delayed crouch tech counter
Delayed crouch tech counter > delayed crouch tech

The next time I will post about the importance of Safe jumping and Option selects, see ya for now

Muttonhead:

Safe Jump and option select

First of all what is a safe jump?

In basic terms Its basically a jump in on your opponents wake up which you can hit them, but they cant hit you.

What is option select?

Option select is basically doing an input gives you more than 1 option e.g jump in hk OS c.hk, if opponent blocks c.hk doesn’t come out, but if he back dashes c.hk automatically comes out and hits him.
There are so many different types of option selects and character specific option selects that it would take take forever to explain about them all.

So whats the point of writing an article about Safe jump and OS (option select) if you’re not going to list a detailed description about what they are and all the various different types of OS?

There’s already so much info on it that its pointless for me to say more about it since you can simply search about it yourself and the other sources will be able to give a much better description than i can give, this article will be more about showing you why they should be used and why they are so important and will show you what you’re missing out on if these are not implemented into your game, so after reading this article please feel free to search your character specific forum on SRK or youtube etc for your character specific OS’s and safejump setups.

Safe jump and OS importance

The importance of implementing safe jumping and OS into your game is huge, in some match I’ll even say without using them it changes the match up completely out of your favor.

Example I’ll give is the Ryu vs Chun li matchup, as far as i know the matchup is pretty even, around 5-5 but without the use of OS+SJ from ryu, the match is definately much more in chun li’s favour.

Say that each time Ryu gets a knockdown Chun li if you don’t safe jump she can just EX SBK you and if you dont option select she can just backdash out of nearly everything so you wont be able to put pressure on her, By using safe jump and option select if she tries to escape or reversal she will be punished badly.

Example on knockdown Ryu does a safe jump option select c.hk, if chun li went to backdash on wakeup your c.hk will come out and knock her down and if she went for a EX SBK you will land and block it and be able to punish her.

After the Chun li player sees that you keep Safejumping and option selecting her, she will basically stop trying to backdash and reversal all the time.

“So if they stop doing reversals and backdashing whats the point of doing it?”

I’ve been asked that a few times, the point of it is even if they stop trying to escape sure you’re OS’s are not going to be coming out and they will stop reversalling so you wont get any “instant” damage off them as much but the main point of it all it that you have now made chun li stationary since shes scared to escape so now you can do things on her like you never normally could since she could just backdash out of everything.

example say you want to go for a empty jump grab on chun lis wake up and you don’t option select, the opponent will backdash all the time knowing you can’t stop them, but if the opponent knows you can SJ + OS it will keep him grounded so now being able to land an empty jump throw on her on wakeup is possible.

Another example i can give is of akuma knocking down someone on wakeup that uses Safe jump and OS compared to someone who doesn’t.

Lets take for example Sagat (or anyone with a slower than 3 frame reversal)

First of all an akuma who doesnt use SJ + OS when he gets a knockdown and tries to land a demon flip throw, he will hardly ever be able to land it since people will most likely just uppercut you or backdash.

But now think of an akuma who knows SJ + OS if he gets a knockdown the opponent will now be too scared to do anything so the chances of landing that demon flip grab is much higher since they are scared to uppercut now in case you did a safe demon flip palm and make their uppercut whiff

So my point im trying to make is SJ + OS isnt just good for the direct things they do, but also the in direct things that comes from using it

OS USED IN BLOCKSTRINGS

A basic option select used by most characters who have a rapid fire light attack, e.g Ryu is [c.lp, c.lp+c.hk, c.lp+c.hk} if the opponent stands there and just blocks all that you will see is c.lp x3, but if he goes to back dash automatically your sweep will come out and get him

Another one for ryu/akuma is [c.lp, c.lp, walk up c.mp ~ os c.hk] so this is the basic delayed counter hit setup as i mentioned befor, but if the opponent goes to back dash after your c.lp, c.lp, your c.mp will whiff but then you’re c.hk will come out and hit them out of their back dash (Daigo was seen using this at APAC, thanks to Henry for figuring out what Daigo was doing)

HOW AND WHY THIS WORKS

Go into training mode and press c.mp and make it whiff, then now go and c.mp and make it hit or be blocked, you will notice if your c.mp whiff it recovers much faster, so what you wanna do is press the c.hk the exact timing that your c.mp recovers on whiff, so if they block or get hit by your c.mp you are still frozen since it takes longer for you to recover but if they went to back dash your c.mp will whiff and then instantly your c.hk will come out and catch them.

So the point of this is if you’re going for a counter setup to beat delayed crouch tech vs a back dash happy character like chun li, rose etc… they will always just back dash to safety and not have to worry about teching, but now since they know your are OS’ing them they will then be scared to backdash and have to try defend against your string.

MULTIPLE OS IN 1 STRING

Akuma string [c.lk + c.lp, c.lp, walk up c.mp+lp+lk ~ OS c.hk]

the block string above when blocked would just look like [c.lk, c.lp, walk up c.mp] but if you look at the inputs it achieves much more than just that, the first hit which is a c.lk, is also a tech if your opponent went to throw you, when you walk up c.mp and your opponent went to throw you then you will also tech that throw and if your opponent went to back dash your sweep will come out and get him.

So the example above shows how many inputs in a basic string is like at high level play, before you go and just try this string will all 3 option selects in it, learn it a bit at a time, e.g first learn the basic [c.lk, c.lp, walk up c.mp] string by just starting the string with a c.lp+c.lk instead of a c.lk.
once you have got the hang of that instead of doing c.mp on its own, do it as c.mp+c.lp+c.lk, once you are comfortable with that, then you can also add the OS c.hk to the end of the c.mp.
Once your comfortable with the string that’s not all you have to do either, if you c.mp got a counter hit on them you must learn to react to do a c.hk to combo into knockdown or if they focused the c.mp into back dash then you must also react and c.hk their back dash, so you’re basically doing 3 OS in 1 string with also 2 things you must react to if they happen (if you score the CH on the c.mp or to sweep them if they focus back dash)

If you learn things this like step by step it is well worth it as i have shown how many things a simple string can do if, take your time and learn complicated things like this a bit at a time.

SAFE JUMP OS

A safe jump OS is what I’ve mentioned before in this topic, which is safe jumping which is safe to their reversal and the OS which catches their back dash(or example against Abel you can safe jump OS throw instead if you think he will try escape with ex roll OS grab will catch him)

I’ve seen people attempt SJ OS a lot but one of the main reasons i see them fail is because they jumped too early and did an empty jump which means the move they OS’ed will come out automatically since with an empty jump your attack can’t hit them.

Also if you jump too late its no longer a safe jump and the reversal will hit you, also time your OS as late as possible so its safe to most reversals (you will block if they reversal) if you do the OS too quick it will come out if they reversal.

So if you want to get good at SJ OS’ing i recommend just learning to safe jump first, once you got the hang of proper safe jump timing then you can add the OS to the end of it.

GOOD HABITS TO GET INTO AND OTHER RANDOM INFO ABOUT OS

A good habit to get into is using crouch tech instead of just pressing c.lk when doing a string so it lets you tech if they throw you and also get use to hit confirming into a combo after your crouch tech (c.lk) hits your opponent.

If your opponent has a crappy c.lk move, you can crouch tech by using a different button e.g guile [c.mp+c.lp+c.lk] so if you don’t tech a throw a c.mp comes out instead of a c.lk.

This certain technique is also good for dealing with dive kick pressure, for example Akuma vs Cammy or Rufus doing a block string mixing up between throw and instant dive kick.

If Rufus for example does s.lk, you can then delay crouch tech using [c.mp+c.lp+c.lk] if he goes to throw after the s.lk you then you will tech, if he goes to do a instant dive kick your c.mp will come out and beat it.

But don’t think this is a solution to everything though and start spamming it like crazy, if Rufus suspects you will do this after the s.lk, he can walk up and s.mp to break your delayed crouch tech.

SUMMARY

The whole point of this article wasn’t to show you a whole bunch of different safe jumps and option selects but show you the importance of these techniques why you need them in your game, and to show you there is lot more behind what you actually see in the game when you see top players playing each other and wonder why a top player may be able to land something like an empty jump throw on wake up but when you try it you won’t be able to (lack of SJ + OS to keep them sitting there).

So as a quick sum up of what i wrote today and yesterday, without knowing counter hit set ups, option selects and safe jumps, it is much too difficult to break someone defense since they can keep spamming crouch tech, back dashing and reversaling their way out of trouble, once you get these things down it will give you a much more even playing ground for the next time you go up against a top player.

These two articles i wrote is about the main problems i have seen from players in Melbourne (maybe AUS in general?) so if you found these articles helpful please go and search for your characters safe jump and option select setups and try to get them down.

Since i have got the main things out of the way, the next posts i do will be about the general importance of good footsies and anti airing and also some other random things. see ya