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DaRealZil

[Xrd] Leo Whitefang vs Sin Kiske

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Basically, I just wait until he's done exhausting his food bar on my guard then chase him down while he's trying to eat. Bad Sins will panic at this point, attempting a foodless dp or some other random moves.

You can pretty much react to any of his far pressure strings. Play turtle until it's time to go in.

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Start of round

Sin has a minor advantage.

Leo's important moves:

  • 5K: beats Sin's 2S clean, trades with f.S in Sin's favor
  • f.S: beats Sin's 5K, loses to f.S and 2S
  • 2D: beats 5K and 2S
  • Jump forward j.K: beats f.S, Sin recovers in time to block after 5K and 2S.

 

 

Sin's f.S seems dominant here at first, but Leo's jump forward j.K leads to a pretty decent combo (j.K j.H 5K 2H rekkas = 165 damage). If you can enforce the strength of your jump here, Sin can be scared to hit buttons. 2S becomes more appealing to him then, because it doesn't get him hit if you jump. That's when using 5K becomes a good idea, because you get a full combo if you beat 2S with 5K.

 

If f.S whiffs, you can punish with 5H on whiff and get a knockdown or big damage. This is one reason why Sin players will prefer 2S in footsie, because it actually beats your 5H clean by low profiling. At most ranges, you can't whiff punish 2S with Leo 5H, so you still should trust on 2D and 5K to beat 2S.

 

A lot of Sin's pressure revolves around 2S > 236K (Elk Hunt) > 236H ( > 236K > 236H loops. 236K > 236H is always a true blockstring, but there is a gap to Eisen Sturm or Blitz Shield between the 236H and followup 236K. In order to maintain charge, you have to perform the instant block while crouching, so your inputs might look like 1,2,1,8H. This is a fairly small gap and you can get hit for doing it, but the reward is big and this is a string that most Sin players absolutely rely on, similar to Leo's f.s > 5H/6K. You can actually react to the 236K after instant blocking so that you're not just uppercutting on a guess, as well. You can also interrupt his 2S > 236K, but you probably won't have charge for when you block 2S.

 

Bull Bash

Of special note is Sin's 214S, also known as Bull Bash. This is a (very slow) overhead attack that hits in a huge arc around Sin. It hits 2/3rds of the screen away, and on hit can lead to half life, even midscreen. The hitbox is disjointed, so even trying to react to it with Eisen Sturm or 632146H will just lead to Sin clashing with you. Overall, you really just need to learn to respect the crap out of Bull Bash. It's Sin's #1 scrubkiller move (think Gunflame), and learning how to respect and properly disrespect it is a big part of the matchup. If you hit whiff normals anywhere on screen, Sin can Bull Bash you to death. If you try to throw full screen fireballs, he might Bull Bash you. Be ready to YRC your fireball on reaction, even before it comes out, because it's better to waste meter than eat a ton of damage.

 

The best answer I have currently is to Blitz Shield it on reaction. From max range, you can get a running 6H rekkas. From up closer, you can punish with IAD j.K j.S(1) j.H 5K cl.S 5H rekkas. From point blank-ish range, you can punish with jump forward delayed j.K j.H 5K cl.S 5H rekkas. Of course, they have the option to counter-Blitz if they have meter, so a lot of the time a dashing 2D, dashing 5D, or 2S 2H rekkas will be all you're confident in going for. There's a lot of intricacies to the Blitz Shield metagame that I'm not going into here, but it's important to be aware that they exist. Remember, you're not trying to win from the long range game. You're only trying to get close enough to run Leo's blender on them.

 

Oki notes

Sin has a ridiculously long wakeup period after rekkas and throws. For example, after throw, you can bt.dash forward three times and still whiff a bt.K because he's not up yet. You actually can get a RRC if you try to YRC a H meaty fireball because he's still on the ground, so be wary.

 

Safe jump oki is effective on Sin, but of course you need to delay your jump forever. You can actually do throw > 22 > hold up forward to safe jump, but you need to delay a frame or two to actually force him to block.

 

Hawk Baker

Worth mentioning is Sin's meterless reversal, Hawk Baker, 623S. While it has very little range, Hawk Baker is very annoying for Leo to deal with because Sin can cancel it into safe moves for no Tension (only cost is his Calorie Gauge). The strongest way to bait and punish Hawk Baker is to backdash to make Hawk Baker whiff. The problem with stuff like Leo's meaty 6K is that it requires you to dash towards the opponent, which normally means that you can't cancel from your forward dash into your backdash. If you're doing grounded meaties, then you're on some level putting yourself into a guessing game as to whether he'll wakeup throw or wakeup DP, because his DP can be made safer with the Calorie Gauge. The best way to break this pattern is to use what I call the "Millia shuffle," aka FD break backdash. Most commonly used by Millia because her dash momentum and backdash are absurd, this simply involves hitting 4PK > 4 to cancel your forward dash into Faultless Defense, which is then cancelled into a backdash. This is also a much safer way to bait moves like Volcanic Viper because if Sol wakeup throws/OS 5K, he just whiffs.

 

Of course, safe jump oki has none of these problems with wakeup throw when timed properly. In order to avoid the above problem with Hawk Baker, I recommend buffering a backdash OS off the safe jump to make Hawk Baker whiff. If Sin backdashes, he'll get out, but that's a very ballsy backdash because you can also just autopilot 5P 5K to punish his backdash.

 

If you actually do get Hawk Baker to whiff, you get to go to town because Sin is rightly in CH recovery, and the recovery is very long. Dash up 2H > 6H > 236H > 66 5K cl.s (jc) j.K (jc) j.K j.H j.236H is optimal punish meterless from what I know, but something like 6H 5K cl.S 5H rekkas does 177, so just make sure that it hurts him. Spending meter for corner push is fine. 6[H] bt.S 63146S is definitely the best starter if you're spending meter, but as always those combos are pretty spacing and character specific. 6[H] 632146S 2366H 5K cl.S  (jc) j.K (jc) j.K j.H j.236H = 261 Damage

 

Defense

Sin's offense is like Ky's with an even slower Greed Sever but a safe Stun Dipper. Block low until he runs low on food. React high to j.D, leap stuff, Bull Bash, and 5D. Sin does absurd damage rivaling even Leo, so while Sin's mixup is actually very predictable and weak if you can react high, Sin can steal rounds off one hit. Be warned.

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well I am a sin player and I was just curious how other see him and his play styles, what you guys do to counter etc. Leo is one of my favorite matchups as sin to be honest. From the other side of this matchup leo is very linear and a lot of Leo's I play eventually run into a meaty 236H which is easy to combo into almost anything depending on the situation. What is difficult for me as a sin player is when leo gets a hard knock down and is dashing over my body, taunting me to do something. I have to guess, is he going for a low kick or counter on wakeup? Leo's overhead H from backstance is slow and easy to catch. So from a sin player to a leo, just close the gap the best you can and crowd sin, even better if you can get him in the corner because he is slow.

 

oh and everything that Kikuichimoni said is completely right, Sin's real strength is big damage when he does hit, but there he has almost no mix up game.

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