Kliff vs A.B.A

[pochp]

Discuss the matchup here. I'll add information to this post when I can get around to it. Not all the matchups are represented in my local scene, and the character is new, so please contribute!

Beware of the slow wakeup. High stun resistance and defense, so you can't go for an easy dizzy. Shouldn't be too hard to find a safejump vs danzai, anyone have one?

[lofo]

So far I feel this is Kliff's easiest matchup. You dominate her really hard in normal form, can compete with her moroha form, knock down off everything, can loop 50/50s once you get a first knockdown, and are really hard for her to combo into a knockdown.

 

While she's in normal form, your main concern is keeping her close enough to punish any transformation attempt. This is relatively easy because your fast and long pokes can punish her common transform strings. Drill punishes her 5H-bloodpack, vault can catch her if she tries to run away. It's not too tough to stay on her. As long as you do that, you can get away with pretty much whatever, though if you go for P-roar traps be aware that they are the exact range of her FB slide, so I recommend going for IAD-based pressure when she has meter.

 

While she's in moroha, your main ground pokes are f.S (when she's far), 2D (when she's a bit closer), 5P (when she's close and leaving a gap) and not much else. Focus on defense and be patient, she is pretty limited in her methods of approach. Stance-slap can be worthwhile if she's in your face and you don't have a lot of damage on you. She might choose to come in by air because her j.H is hard to beat ground to air. 623H can work there, but jumping up to air-to-air with j.P or j.S feels more reliable and can go into a knockdown if you have meter. 

 

Once you get a hit, always confirm into a knockdown, ideally with corner push. You get a perfect deep safejump off a vault knockdown, a looser safejump off corner S-roar. After the vault, do a deep j.S for a fuzzy, after the S-roar go for j.KS-KSH for fuzzy or a delayed j.S. The vault gives her less room to mess with your setups but the S-roar combos do more damage and the vault ender is not always possible. Once you hit the fuzzy, a decent combo is KSH plunge dash 2S vault (+2S S-roar in the corner). ABA's long knockdown time means vault into 2S S-roar is usually possible if you want to do it. Combos like f.S drill 2S S-roar FRC dash vault (hits) 2S S-roar are often worthwhile for the setup they give.

 

You can't safejump after a sweep, so comboing into P-roar FRC j.S j.drill or just going for a meaty taunt are worthwhile. It's also possible to link a 2S after sweep if you're close. I havn't figured out a good setup after D-roar yet unfortunately. After her bar is depleted, I usually step back a bit and go for a fully charged 6H. It does good damage and is protected against her bursting the knockdown since you can just let it go early to punish.

 

Punish-wise, if she does danzai, you can sweep punish, or IB the second hit and f.S punish, or 5P between the hits, or ideally dodge between the hits and D-slap her for a stun. It really depends what you feel comfortable with and how close you are. If she goes for a goku moroha activate and you're close, you can dodge through in the 2f gap after the super flash and P-slap. In theory a D-slap might be possible but I havn't got it to work. If someone manages it, let me know. If you're really close when she does it (say during a safejump), you can straight up throw her during the 2f gap. Sample throw combo is throw dash 2S vault, then add on 2S S-roar in the corner. If she's throwing out rekkas you can punish the second and third hits with 5P, just don't get tricked.

 

Once she enters goku moroha, everything you whiff can be punished from extremely far away for enormous damage, so act conservatively. You can't safejump against GM FB danzai off an S-roar knockdown, it's a bit too fast and it has enough armour to break through the j.KS chain. Fortunately that's a rare situation, but play around it. Note that you can often punish a far GM activate with drill, so she has to be careful with it.

 

In general this match comes down to whoever can control the pace. If you force her to burst tons of resources to transform and stay transformed, you'll win. Kliff is pretty well equipped to do that.

 

edit - Be careful about being above her in general. Moroha 2S beats j.S and j.H clean and clashes with plunge and can cancel into danzai. Goku moroha 2S is even scarier since it moves like a chainsaw and goes into bigger damage. It's wise to FD down if you find yourself in that situation.