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kenja0

[CS2] Lambda vs Hazama

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Matchup: 4-6: Like Lambs to the Slaughter

CS1 Hazama vs Lambda

Lambda's (and the Lambda community's) worst matchup by far. Hazama has the most flexibility out of any other character in the game. Just like CS1, he is strong with many options offensively and defensive- he is also a popular character in tournaments so you may see him more often than not.

Similar to a Lambda mirror match, Hazama has much of the same options as Lambda from far away; however, the positions he can be at, the aims of his drive, and his follow-up damage from a hitconfirm are much better than Lambda's, especially with 50+ Heat. In order to fight against Hazama, Lambda must respect these options: one mistake against Hazama with Heat can lead to half of Lambda's HP gone...

Good excerpt from Xie on the matchup:

How to control space:

When pressing the D button, you need to attack in anticipation of your opponent's attack, and not on reaction to the attack itself. If you do it on reaction to the attack, you will just get hit 99.99% of the time, so don't bother doing this. Instead, you need to already put the swords where you think Hazama will be. Lambda's drive attacks have faster start-up across the board and reach their targets faster than Hazama's drive attack will.

A common scenario is like this. You start the round, Hazama does jump 6D. Instead of pressing 6D after he's already pressed his drive attack, you need to press it as he begins rising from his jump. If you catch him doing this, you can make a big payoff in terms of damage, and as a whole, Lambda's damage will out match Hazama's from projectile attacks.

Of course, this is all easier said than done, because a Hazama player does not have to commit against Lambda and can wait for Lambda to make a decisive move. Because of this, my strategy in neutral is to reverse turtle to gather more information. Lambda is actually quite good at dodging and maneuvering, and also resists negative penalty like a champ, so IADing backwards is a nearly unbeatable way to create space. Hazama's chains do not reach full screen and he does not have good mobility outside of using his drive follow up attacks, so you will force Hazama to commit by doing this. Thus, once you are able to force him to commit, you are then able to begin predicting his movement and attack patterns.

How to attack:

If you hit Hazama, but end in crescent, you pretty much will need to repeat the above process. On the bright side, if you grind it out in training mode, you'l be able to react to the different air techs and keep Hazama honest (IE, forcing him to block after an air tech, instead of air dashing/jumping/etc), and the above process will continue.

If however, you manage to knock him down solidly, you can begin a pretty decent amount of pressure. Specific to this matchup, Hazama is only particularly scary to Lambda when he has meter for Houtenjin. Whatever you do, DO NOT AUTOPILOT WHEN HE HAS 50 METER. You need to specifically try to bait it out, stay with attacks that are safe on block (2B, 5B, 6C) and moves you can jump cancel (5B, 2C, 6A, 6B) and for the love of god, don't press 5C, 3C or 4B. If you only use attacks like this in your block string, you will definitely be able to force the Hazama player to guess whether it's safe to Houtenjin or not, and just by baiting out one of them, you'll be in a good position to win the round (Hazama without meter deals shit damage).

One thing worth mentioning, is that while 3C is normally an auto-houtenjin punish, it can be canceled in its recovery frames into Calamity Sword after the superflash of houtenjin. If you are feeling fancy and brave, you can bait a houtenjin this way and score some major OMG BAITEDDDDDD points.

How to defend yourself:

First off, don't fucking panic. Hazama's blockstrings are linear and he can't deal major damage to you without 50 meter. Instant blocking and backdashing is extremely good in this matchup. His normals and dash are fairly short, so at any point there is a long delay, you can pretty much backdash it clearly and work on getting back to neutral. You can pretty much always backdash out of Ressenga's range, and Jabaki is extremely unrewarding on both hit or block, so you can use these gaps to make your escape.

You can also attempt to take his mixup options head on, and this is probably the most important in the corner, where you can't backstep. One example is to look for Ressenga specifically and try to punish it. Ressenga seems pretty fast and is annoying even on block, but you can actually stuff it with a well timed 5A. This sounds risky, but it is extremely rewarding as it will get you around 2000 damage and turn around the momentum of the match. There are a lot of other places where you can play the rock paper scissors game and get out of his pressure, it would be a little bit ridiculous to list them all, so keep an eye out.

Once he has 50 meter, okay you can panic. In this case, his options have gotten a lot scarier, but in reality, his pressure is identical. He's awesome against basically every character in this situation, but if you keep your cool and just think of it as the same as previously, you have a way out.

As for full screen, you need to come to understand what you can do at what ranges. You must know at what range his Xdd j.b will be unbeatable, and at what ranges you can stuff it with 5A or 6A. Instant blocking the chain will be extremely helpful for punishing a pull-in, so put this into practice as well.

I'll update with feedback

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Hazama can react to most things Lambda does and beat it.

He hangs around the air a lot, so I would suggest using 6D/2D/2C/6A/236C to fight him as opposed to almost anything else, ever.

Dashing helps a lot when he's in the air since he can't aim backwards.

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My tl;dr thoughts/advice about the match-up, I'll probably clean it up later:

How to control space:

When pressing the D button, you need to attack in anticipation of your opponent's attack, and not on reaction to the attack itself. If you do it on reaction to the attack, you will just get hit 99.99% of the time, so don't bother doing this. Instead, you need to already put the swords where you think Hazama will be. Lambda's drive attacks have faster start-up across the board and reach their targets faster than Hazama's drive attack will.

A common scenario is like this. You start the round, Hazama does jump 6D. Instead of pressing 6D after he's already pressed his drive attack, you need to press it as he begins rising from his jump. If you catch him doing this, you can make a big payoff in terms of damage, and as a whole, Lambda's damage will out match Hazama's from projectile attacks.

Of course, this is all easier said than done, because a Hazama player does not have to commit against Lambda and can wait for Lambda to make a decisive move. Because of this, my strategy in neutral is to reverse turtle to gather more information. Lambda is actually quite good at dodging and maneuvering, and also resists negative penalty like a champ, so IADing backwards is a nearly unbeatable way to create space. Hazama's chains do not reach full screen and he does not have good mobility outside of using his drive follow up attacks, so you will force Hazama to commit by doing this. Thus, once you are able to force him to commit, you are then able to begin predicting his movement and attack patterns.

How to attack:

If you hit Hazama, but end in crescent, you pretty much will need to repeat the above process. On the bright side, if you grind it out in training mode, you'l be able to react to the different air techs and keep Hazama honest (IE, forcing him to block after an air tech, instead of air dashing/jumping/etc), and the above process will continue.

If however, you manage to knock him down solidly, you can begin a pretty decent amount of pressure. Specific to this matchup, Hazama is only particularly scary to Lambda when he has meter for Houtenjin. Whatever you do, DO NOT AUTOPILOT WHEN HE HAS 50 METER. You need to specifically try to bait it out, stay with attacks that are safe on block (2B, 5B, 6C) and moves you can jump cancel (5B, 2C, 6A, 6B) and for the love of god, don't press 5C, 3C or 4B. If you only use attacks like this in your block string, you will definitely be able to force the Hazama player to guess whether it's safe to Houtenjin or not, and just by baiting out one of them, you'll be in a good position to win the round (Hazama without meter deals shit damage).

One thing worth mentioning, is that while 3C is normally an auto-houtenjin punish, it can be canceled in its recovery frames into Calamity Sword after the superflash of houtenjin. If you are feeling fancy and brave, you can bait a houtenjin this way and score some major OMG BAITEDDDDDD points.

How to defend yourself:

First off, don't fucking panic. Hazama's blockstrings are linear and he can't deal major damage to you without 50 meter. Instant blocking and backdashing is extremely good in this matchup. His normals and dash are fairly short, so at any point there is a long delay, you can pretty much backdash it clearly and work on getting back to neutral. You can pretty much always backdash out of Ressenga's range, and Jabaki is extremely unrewarding on both hit or block, so you can use these gaps to make your escape.

You can also attempt to take his mixup options head on, and this is probably the most important in the corner, where you can't backstep. One example is to look for Ressenga specifically and try to punish it. Ressenga seems pretty fast and is annoying even on block, but you can actually stuff it with a well timed 5A. This sounds risky, but it is extremely rewarding as it will get you around 2000 damage and turn around the momentum of the match. There are a lot of other places where you can play the rock paper scissors game and get out of his pressure, it would be a little bit ridiculous to list them all, so keep an eye out.

Once he has 50 meter, okay you can panic. In this case, his options have gotten a lot scarier, but in reality, his pressure is identical. He's awesome against basically every character in this situation, but if you keep your cool and just think of it as the same as previously, you have a way out.

As for full screen, you need to come to understand what you can do at what ranges. You must know at what range his Xdd j.b will be unbeatable, and at what ranges you can stuff it with 5A or 6A. Instant blocking the chain will be extremely helpful for punishing a pull-in, so put this into practice as well.

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I played against a decent Hazama player online last night about 10 times in a row (lol PSN 4 users)... and I realize how awesome it would be if Lambda's j.D was full screen. No matter my positioning, my 2D and 6D can't touch Hazama at the position he snipes from and j.D doesn't reach far enough...

Mobility is your only friend. >.<

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I dont play Lambda, put I've played enough Hazama to offer some Input.

Hazama + 50 Meter = You are going to have a very bad day. Not only does he have Jayoku, but Mizuchi makes a great Punish for any Lambda who likes dropping swords long range. (Not sure of the input) but dont call in the swords that come from behind randomly. Lambda does that Crouching animation, and it's fairly slow, too. Just dont do it, A few people did it to me, and it's more or less a free distortion.

Learn his Blockstrings and how to punish certain moves. Otherwise people like me will continue enjoying Lambda matchups.

If you really are brave, and feel like Baiting Jayoku, It can really pay off.

For both of you.

It's not much help, But I'll sum it up quick.

1) Learn Blockstrings and Punishes.

2) Fear Jayoku Houtenjin.

3) Mizuchi is viable against Lambda.

4) As with any Hazama matchup. Just keep moving and bailing around. It's annoying.

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this matchup sucks. anyone else find his 3c ridiculous? it has deceptively long range. also, when you're stuck in his j.c mashing in the corner? if you tech in the air, he can put you right back in it.

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I've found that if you are almost always in the air poking him with Ds, if you end up getting hit, be prepared to grab reject. If you don't let an airgrab happen, the most damage you will take is ~1.5K each time you mess up. That or the online lag is messing up my opponents...hmmm.

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As a Hazama player, I can also tips Lambda about fearing his 3C, he can do the same combo he does with Houtenjin if it goes CH, so DON'T MASH otherwise you'll get a free 6k combo because he'll most likely get enough heat to finish with Mizzuchi and if you can bait Houtenjin do it, most Hazama likes to Houtenjin on wake-up so punish it by blocking when they wake up a wasted Houtenjin is a sad story for a hazama... because without meter all he can do if not 3C CH is 1400 dmg... worse if he command grab... ahhh and keep in mind that it's not the 3C or Houtenjin that are that strong, it's Zaneiga (214D~C) wich is only a low, so block low in blockstrings most of the time and don't fear Ressenga, he can't do anything after it, so your just gonna eat like 300 dmg if you blocked low compared to 6k if you blocked high during Zaneiga ;)

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How do you punish that overhead 214D~A?

You can't. It is +2 on normal block and -1 on IB. Even though it is -1 on IB, Hazama's 2A is 6 frames, so we can't really press buttons after it. You can stuff it with 5A or you can just backdash it.

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So, I'm starting to think this match-up isn't so bad anymore because if they like to use empty snakes a lot to get around, you can just act parser under them and punish them pretty easily. It shuts down their long range pressure so hard if you just wait for them to come to you then act parser under them. Basically any time they don't tag your block with a snake, it's a chance to punish them.

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...Okay... This MIGHT be helpful to me... if i knew what these number-letter things meant... I Have absolutely no idea what any of this is, and I've been doing Arcade Mode for Lambda and I've died enough times to go through every single one of her costumes.

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