[CP] Azrael vs. Tsubaki Match-up Discussion

[zeth07]

Discussion about the Tsubaki match-up goes here.

First post may be edited as important information arises. If any information seems wrong please feel free to correct it, hopefully with actual proof / examples. Anyone is free to post info as long as it is constructive and helps with the discussion of the match-up.

• Will post info later.
  

Notable Matches:

[10/07/13] Tsubaki vs. Yubou (AZ) = http://youtu.be/tXqQXpi8QDw?t=8m59s

[09/14/13] Tahichi (Azrael) VS Tsubaki = http://youtu.be/FJhpB6FBH8g

[08/31/13] Shiro Madoushi (AZ) vs. Tsubaki = http://youtu.be/zWN6NM9XE-o?t=7m51s

Marilro/Oyasu Mingosu (Tsubaki) VS Dogura (Azrael)

[LordSpectreX]

As expected of Tsubaki, this matchup is heavily reliant on how much charge she gets. As Azrael's tools are rather unorthodox, if she has no charge, you can literally do anything you want almost for free, but if she has charge you have to start respecting a lot of stuff.

Neutral;-

If the Tsubaki is good, she'll start with a zoning game with her j.236A and charge behind it. Since Azrael isn't the most mobile character, you only have two options. Either jump over the j.236A and play the dancing air game with j.B, Air Dash and j.2C. Or you can dash into the projectile and TK Growler you get a charge. Both these options will force Tsubaki to quickly stop charging and take action. There's nothing to stop her IAD backwards and doing the process again, but eventually she'll have to reach the corner. In other words, making sure you have presence mid-range is very important. If you can get in, go ahead, but her 2C is a pretty damn good anti air, and her 5B covers ground approaches well. So you'll want to play patiently around the range of a maximum Azrael 5C.

Tsubaki has decent ground poke and dash speed. Meanwhile, her capabilities for dealing with Aerial Opponents is limited. Her Air-to-Air normals are honestly kinda garbage, and while 2C is a very good anti air, it's still her only *real* anti air. Playing a dancing aerial game is highly recommended, a good matchup to use Divekick in.

Most of her normals can be whiffed cancelled into a followup just like Azrael's 5B>5BB. Because of this, she can easily punish dash attempts through her with even needing to react much. Use with extra caution.

Her Charge Orb Dash thing that costs 2 charges is extremely fast and high priority. It will catch you out of careless forward dashing with incredible ease, even if you jump cancel. Aerial Mobility is the way to go.

Offense;

Once you do get in, how this will go will be either simple or much more complicated depending on how much charge she has. If she has none, then really the only threat is her 623DP, which like Azrael's DP, can be traded with. Her backdash is mediocre and she has no 5F 5A of the sort. So in this scenario, she's at the mercy of her fundamentals. If she has one charge, then she can do 623D, which cannot be traded with, but can be baited and 3D Punished like any most other DPs. The problem comes when she has 3 charges. If she has 3 charges, she can whiff cancel her 623D into j.236D and then whiff cancel that into j.214D. While none of these options are safe, they require very different counters to beat. Adding an extra layer of a mindgame. You don't want to get hit, so as an option select, your best option is too dash forward and let her dive behind you, using all 3 charges. You can't punish it but if you react fast enough you can keep up the momentum.

While this is my safest choice, it's not always reliable, as she can whiff cancel her DP almost as fast or as slowly as she likes, so stay vigilant and play safe. But in all, try to not let her get more then 2 charges in the first place.

Defense;

Tsubaki's mixup pressure got improved in CP by a fair bit, but it is still rather suspect. A lot of blockstrings have very close range, so you don't have to worry about whiffing Growler vs normals much. Tsubaki usually reapplies pressure by cancelling into charge. You can poke her out of this, but how easy it is and which poke to use largely depends on the normal she Charge Cancelled from and the range she did it at. Without knowing the specifics, you can backdash, but since she's at neutral after charge, she can very easily just keep dashing and punish the backdash with little effort. Since her pressure is finnicky, Barrier is very strong vs her and is generally a good idea for when she's doing anything other than stagger 5A pressure. Chicken Blocking when you predict a gap is not a bad option at all considering Tsubaki's limited anti air game.

Don't backdash if near the corner to try and make stuff whiff. Due to her whiff cancellable normals, it will almost always never work.

[Kiba]

And after some time passes there's some things to say:

 

 

Offense;

Once you do get in, how this will go will be either simple or much more complicated depending on how much charge she has. If she has none, then really the only threat is her 623DP, which like Azrael's DP, can be traded with. Her backdash is mediocre and she has no 5F 5A of the sort. So in this scenario, she's at the mercy of her fundamentals. If she has one charge, then she can do 623D, which cannot be traded with, but can be baited and 3D Punished like any most other DPs. The problem comes when she has 3 charges. If she has 3 charges, she can whiff cancel her 623D into j.236D and then whiff cancel that into j.214D. While none of these options are safe, they require very different counters to beat. Adding an extra layer of a mindgame. You don't want to get hit, so as an option select, your best option is too dash forward and let her dive behind you, using all 3 charges. You can't punish it but if you react fast enough you can keep up the momentum.

 

Tsubaki players will mainly use 623C irrespective of how much charge they have, but if 623D beats 6A, that's pretty significant. I honestly haven't considered using 623D as a reversal at any time. So if we were to ignore that, then the problem arises when she has 2 charge

While this is my safest choice, it's not always reliable, as she can whiff cancel her DP almost as fast or as slowly as she likes, so stay vigilant and play safe. But in all, try to not let her get more then 2 charges in the first place.

 

Tsubaki only has a few frames to cancel 623C into j.236D or j.214D otherwise she will have missed the timing and therefore be extremely vulnerable. I can't even give a rough estimate, maybe 6f? Don't quote me on this.

Defense;

Tsubaki's mixup pressure got improved in CP by a fair bit, but it is still rather suspect. A lot of blockstrings have very close range, so you don't have to worry about whiffing Growler vs normals much. Tsubaki usually reapplies pressure by cancelling into charge. You can poke her out of this, but how easy it is and which poke to use largely depends on the normal she Charge Cancelled from and the range she did it at. Without knowing the specifics, you can backdash, but since she's at neutral after charge, she can very easily just keep dashing and punish the backdash with little effort. Since her pressure is finnicky, Barrier is very strong vs her and is generally a good idea for when she's doing anything other than stagger 5A pressure. Chicken Blocking when you predict a gap is not a bad option at all considering Tsubaki's limited anti air game.

 

Tsubaki is only neutral from a charge cancel from 5CC and at that point it usually isn't recommended to pressure unless the Azrael has committed to blocking for example. Everything else charge cancelled is unsafe but may be safer than a standalone normal. 5B is -5 on block, but 5B > charge cancel is -2.The rest of the specifics are in the Tsubaki wiki.

 

Also:

Tsubaki j.236A/Blade Super oki doesn't work against Azrael since he can just growler it, so the Tsubaki shouldn't be doing this, and they should focus on going for damage. This is a given.

[LordSpectreX]

Wow, I forgot I wrote this. Kinda embarrassing lol. I'll need to research how Tsubaki works more.