Potemkin vs. Sol

[Tae Seong Kim]

IMO... Potemkin's favor 5.5 - 4.5

Stuff that Potemkin likes:

- Pot's damage > Sol's damage

- Pot's defense > Sol's defense

- Sol gets messed up pretty badly if his DP gets blocked.

- Sol gets messed up pretty badly when his Revolver gets IBed

- Sol gets messed up pretty badly when his Viper... you get the picture. Pot gets in a free Pot Buster for blocking anyone of his specials, except for Riot Stomp. Which you 6P him out of btw.

Stuff that Potemkin hates:

- Sol's Grand Viper is annoying at time especially when used as a reversal to get out of pressure. It goes under Pot's 5P, 6P, 5S, 2S, 5HS, 6HS, and Hammerfall.

- Riot Stomp is another annoying tool when used to escape Potemkin's 5K, 2K, 6K, PB, oki.

- Dust Sidewinder combo works against Pot T_T

- Hard to Oki him without using safe jump ins. Sol can DP on reaction to 6K and unblockable Slide head.

- Reflector Slidehead unblockable loop doesn't work on Sol.

I'll add other stuff later. I'm lazy right now.

[Skunkee]

Definitely in Potemkin's favor. I'd agree with the 5.5 - 4.5 rating.

I'd add this to stuff Potemkin Likes:

- Pot's life total and Guts rating > Sol's

- Bandit Revolver can be Heavenly Potemkin Buster'd (uncommon occurrence but a beautiful one).

- Standard weight and hitbox on Sol means most Heat Knuckle setup combos work well.

and this to stuff Potemkin Hates:

- Gun flame FDB timing is tricky. As a ground based projectile you might have to end up blocking this to avoid getting grand viper'd through your reflected projectile. Reflect meaty Gun Flames, block FRC'd ones.

[Sol-Bumguy]

+

Definitely in Potemkin's favor. I'd agree with the 5.5 - 4.5 rating.

I'd add this to stuff Potemkin Likes:

- Pot's life total and Guts rating > Sol's

- Bandit Revolver can be Heavenly Potemkin Buster'd (uncommon occurrence but a beautiful one).

- Standard weight and hitbox on Sol means most Heat Knuckle setup combos work well.

and this to stuff Potemkin Hates:

- Gun flame FDB timing is tricky. As a ground based projectile you might have to end up blocking this to avoid getting grand viper'd through your reflected projectile. Reflect meaty Gun Flames, block FRC'd ones.

I agree for the most part, but PO's health+guts alone are no where near enough to make the match-up in his favour, IMO-- in fact, all of the characters who PO loses to have average and/or below average health+guts, IIRC...

HF when used correctly, also works fairly well on Sol, as well as 6P, 2HS, HK, etc for his jump ins, AD/IAD-- or you can simply BD>PB, of course (but of course, watch out for FRC'd GF's>IAD, etc). I agree with GV working against PO at times, but no offense but, IMHO, a good/smart PO player would not throw out random 5P's, 6P's, 5S's, 2S's, 5HS's, etc/allow them to be GV'd repeatedly... I also agree with SO's VV being a bit annoying for PO at many times, but as long as the PO player does not put himself at risk of being VV'd, or baits them, that alone or mostly should not be enough to kill him. Also, the D SW loop works on A LOT OF CHARACTERS, even some "smallish" ones-- perhaps not as well as it works on PO, but it still works and does A LOT of damage...

From what I have always SEEN, read, and heard, PO has always been known for being one of SO's WORST match-ups, and everytime I watch videos of Japanese high-level play, it is pretty obvious that this is a hard fight for SO-- unless the SO player (players such as Roi, 012, Miu, etc) is really out-playing the PO player, which often happens, even when SO ends up barely losing...LOL. However, it might seem closer to being even on low-mid level play, or when the PO player is playing the match-up incorrectly-- but I am not certain...Still, most of what SO does is potentially PB-bait; he cannot really zone/run away all that well, and how safe is it to WT PO without being PB'd first? But SO also has his ways around PO-- somewhat limited, but has ways, especially since GG is such a balanced game and NO PLAYER should feel discouraged by a match-up.

Again, unless we are referring to #R, I totally disagree with PO Vs. SO being only 5.5 in PO's favour-- PO even beats JA, OS, KY and I am CERTAIN that he is supposedly worse for SO than those 3 (not 100% certain about JA, but how bad are her match-ups?). If we are only going up to 6-4, then I will rate it as a 6-4, but I would probably give it a 6.5-3.5 normally, though... Not being biased; SO annoys me when I use PO, but I can understand that I tend to play the match up wrong or simply get out-played (I lose to Ky all the time, but I never/rarely take personal match-up experience into consideration when judging/rating a match-up-- I almost solely base it on high-level play examples, similar opinions from BOTH sides, and kind of the obvious as well). And sorry but this is my first time posting strategy on DL, and I am half-asleep, LOL...

[4r5]

ugh, what makes people post in colored text?

And can we stay away from the matchup rating talk? These threads are suppose to be about dissecting the match up and figuring out what tools and strategies we have at our disposal. That number does nothing towards that regard.

Anyways, I've never played the matchup, but I'd wager a good start would be to make him come to you. You're not trying to play the full-blown run away strategy. After all, you don't want to do Potemkin's work for him and put yourself in the corner. You're just dancing right outside Potemkin's comfort zone. But you never go in to it, you don't want to just give it to him after all. You make Potemkin work to get you in to it.

That's how a large majority of the cast plays the fight. Exploit his lack of mobility, make him come to you. You make him bleed to get to you. Whether he's bleeding life, tension, or the clock, it's all good. Plus, if he's moving forward, he's not holding a back charge, you've just taken away his Hammer Fall. When you fight Potemkin, you aren't trying to finish the fight, you're just making sure Potemkin can't finish the fight. Think of it like playing Street Fighter 4.

And as Sol, I would shy away from Volcanic Viper. Even if I had meter to RC it.

[Tae Seong Kim]

Combos to use against Sol:

After Pot Buster FRC...

- 2S, Heat (Basic BNB)

- 2S, 2HS, Heat (Requires strict timing)

- 2S, 2HS, Heavenly

- You can also do 2HS heat and 5HS Heat in the corner

- 5S, 2S, Heat doesn't work (Thank you Sol's hitbox)

After Slidehead...

5K, 2S, Heat

5K, 2S, 2HS, Heavenly

5K, 2HS, Heat (when close to opponent)

cS, 2HS, Heavenly

Reflector works after 5K, 2S, 2HS. You can do the follow up and get them with 5HS into heat. They may bounce the other way when you hit them with the follow up.

You can also do 6K, 2HS, Reflector.