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ehuangsan

My Ky Trade Secrets thread

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I've decided to share my trade secrets about Ky just for the heck of it, since I barely play the game more than once a month nowadays. I'll be intermittently posting random thoughts, tricks, and correcting misperceptions about matchups and other things that I've seen in the forum.

Mittie Blue Light

This is a pretty old trick since the days of XX. Advanced players know that one of Ky's burst points (places where you can burst for free without worry) is right before the second hit of the Stun dipper. So a lot of advanced players will burst right at that point to get out of being comboed.

One of the best Ky players ever (Mitsutoshi) figured out that you can kill this burst point by FRCing in the middle of a combo to let the opponent hang himself with a burst. If the opponent doesn't burst, it's a neutral situation so it's not a big deal. If the opponent bursts, you can then block into an air combo or if you're a baller like Mittie, you can air throw them out of the burst. This requires good yomi and being able to FRC the stun dipper on demand. Japanese players nicknamed this tactic after Mitsutoshi, which roughly translated is "Mittie Blue Light"

EDIT: Video Example @ 59:37

eh-sama special

This is my personal variation on the Mittie Blue Light, though the application and situation is quite different. As far as I can tell, I am the only Ky player that does this, but I've apparently used this effectively enough that Nor-Cal people name this trick after me.

Certain types of players like to normal jump straight up roughly a quarter screen distance away in order to zone Ky out. Or, they like to air dash into or just within this distance to zone or position themselves to attack Ky. This is not a bad idea since it is outside of Ky's AAs and does limit Ky's options somewhat. This is also especially effective when Ky is cornered, as it serves a double purpose of preventing him from escaping from the corner and being just outside his effective range.

So how does Ky deal with that situation? The eh-sama special is to: Stun-Dipper to close the distance, then FRC, and air throw them. If timed and spaced right, this is more or less indefensible as you will end up right at the perfect position to airthrow them, and the Stun Dipper will place you where you need to be very quickly. This is especially effective when you're in the corner because not only do you get out of the corner, you air throw your opponent into the corner and seize the initiative. Of course, this requires that you know the stun dipper distance and FRC timing down pat, but that's a requirement for playing Ky anyway.

Theoretically you can FRC and VT to fish for a counterhit, but I think that is needlessly risky since the air throw is almost guaranteed and 100% safe even if you miss.

EDIT: Video Example @1:33 and 2:15

Next up: Ky vs. Zappa

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Ky v. Zappa

This is something that I think the Zappa forum gets right and the Ky forum gets wrong. Ky players here seem to think that it's 4-6 or worse, whereas Zappa player think it's even. I've played this matchup quite often, and I think it's dead even.

At first glance, Zappa seems to have a crazy advantage. He can run under your fireballs and hit you, dog is a pain, ghosts are a pain, Raoh can kill you in one hit, and overall, Zappa is hitting you a lot more often than you're hitting him (maybe something like 6.5-3.5). A lot of Ky tricks are useless on Zappa as well.

However, Zappa does have a lot of severe disadvantages as well:

- He does even less damage than Ky on average, outside of some situation specific combos and Raoh

- He is horrible in the air against Ky, even with sword or Raoh.

- Raoh doesn't have any real mixups or overheads outside of 5d and run up DP/throw

I think the reason why Ky players feel this is a bad matchup is because Zappa has some quirky anti-Ky counters that no other character has, and are not used to getting hit by lots of ticky-tack stuff so often. Usually, Ky is the one doing dick for damage and eating a haymaker to lose the game. Getting ticky-tacked to death while playing it straight while trying to land a haymaker instead is a reversal of what most Ky players are used to, but really, that's what Ky should be doing in this matchup.

Your best poke is, rather surprisingly, jump HS. It's actually difficult for Zappa to beat jump straight up HS. His best options are to run up 2HS, air-throw or specific answers with various summons (AA dog, 2HS sword, dp sword). If he air throws you into OTG summon, it doesn't really hurt all that much, but a lot of times, he'll just end up getting counterhit in the air for sadness.

The problem with 2HS is that there's only a specific spot where it will work and if he's not there, then you'll counterhit him into a ground SE combo for high damage. Also, you can mix it up with air SE FRC for counterhit into high damage combo too.

Against the summons, you simply have to use jump HS somewhat more intelligently, but the basic principles are the same. I've tried this even against good Zappa players (they don't exist in Nor-Cal), and it works as well.

Against Raoh, you simply have to realize that he has no mixup or real overheads outside of 5D or maybe run up DP/throw. So you can play a patient zoning game with 2S, 5S, and canceling into ground SE intermittently. Good Zappas will do a combination of pressure and chip. If he goes for pure lockdown/chip, you'll lose 20%-30% life from pure chip damage, all of your tension and your guard gauge will be jacked sky high.

That will be his chance to come back, and there's not much you can do about that, which makes the matchup more even.

Zappa will hit you a lot with oddball stuff with ghosts and dog, and sometimes sword, but if you're zoning correctly with jump HS, 5S, 2S, intermittent air SEs and ground SEs, you'll find that most of his stuff doesn't hurt. Even though he's hitting you 65% of the time. If you're doing it right, it will turn into a long and rather boring drawn out match quite often.

My rule of thumb for matchups: If Ky can choose to do nothing but passively control space, then the matchup is even or favorable to Ky. If Ky cannot choose to do that and is obligated to take active action, then Ky is a disadvantage. Since Ky can opt to passive control space for the entire round with jump HS, and various ground pokes, it's even since Zappa will hit you a lot.

Next up: I dunno. Maybe Ky v. May or accepting whatever requests.

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You know what I'm gonna ask for...

My thoughts on the matchup can be found in the second half of this post.

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Sure, I can do that.

Ky vs. Johnny

This is one of my most common matchups. I think this matchup is either 5.5-4.5 or 6-4 in favor of Ky. As with my maxim above, Ky can choose to control space with a combination of pokes and fireballs, and the burden of proof is on Johnny to do something about it. I think this match is easier to play as Ky than as Johnny.

If Johnny does catch you, you can die very quickly, but Johnny does have to set himself up to catch you, which isn't easy. Ky is allowed roughly 2 horrible blunders and perhaps one extra minor blunder a round, which is incredible since Ky is normally restricted to one horrible blunder and one minor blunder or less against most other characters.

The Faith Barrage

Almost a decade ago (gee I am old), there was a Ky player known as Faith, who is in my opinion, the best Ky player ever, even better than Mittie, Buppa, Machaboo, Hayashi and whomever. He made Ky look absolutely broken in GGXX and #R, which is very difficult to do. It would've been interesting to see what he would do if he played AC, but alas, he retired in the heyday of #R, which is roughly the time when I also retired.

Anyway, one day, he played a legendary three game match against a Johnny player named Yua, where he decided to troll his opponent. He won the match by throwing over a hundred stun edges and about 40 CSEs while being an all around asshole. This is one game from that match.

The Japanese nickname for this match roughly translates to "The Faith Barrage", but soon it morphed into a cohesive system and named the same. Thus, the "Faith Barrage" was born, and other Japanese Ky players copied the ideas from this match. It's not really anything concrete, but more like a general set of principles:

- From half to 3/4ths screen away, zone with a flurry of 5S, 2S, SEs,and TK SEs.

- Baiting your opponent to do half screen whiffs by dash breaking outside their max range, and punishing the whiffs with an SE or 5S/2S.

- Passively controlling your space and placing the burden on your opponent to do something about it.

- Identifying patterns involving heavy pokes in your opponents block strings, FDing right before the heavy poke, and punishing the resulting whiff with a SE.

- Generally being an all around asshole.

I think the Faith Barrage still works against Johnny; the only changes are that Johnny has a jackhound that can go through SEs and that flying cheddar beam move FRC that allows him to fly at you at almost full screen away (sorry, I'm bad with move names). Still, the above principles are the same; you just have to be a little smarter with it. When Johnny pokes, he's fully committed to it since they're slow, so you can punish a lot of them with SEs and slashes. I think this matchup is worse for Johnny in AC than in XX since Johnny's air pokes kinda suck now in comparison to Ky's AAs.

Basically, the match is like an outboxer versus an inboxer, where Ky is the outboxer (like Apollo vs. Rocky or Mashiba vs. Ippo or whatever you want). Johnny does massive damage once he gets you (30-40% without coin, 50-65% with), but the burden of proof is on him to get to you. You can jab away with SEs, slashes and maintain your space. Johnny has to patiently eat or block the occasional SE or poke and inch his way in to earn a coin and a chance to slaughter you. If he hasn't coined you, Johnny isn't really all that scary and you can be fairly aggressive with the SEs and pokes.

Now if he does push you into the corner, he does get pretty good chances to do a combo into coin for potential massive damage, or if he's coined you already, then some massive damage combo. On defense, it's important to pay attention to whether he has level 2 or level 1 Mist Finer, since if he only has level 1, you can guess towards blocking high against Johnny's jump cancelable pokes or at quarter screen distances to prevent the TK ensenga. If you're a baller, you can slashback the TK ensenga and 5HS for counterhit, but I think that's excessively risky. If he has level 2 Mist Finer, then you have to guess if he's going to TK ensenga or mist finer low, and more often than not you will guess wrong and lose 50-65% life. Oh well, that's one horrible blunder and not death and in comparison to other characters, it doesn't hurt all that much.

Consistent with the Faith Barrage, always check what kind of auto-pilot block strings the Johnny player likes to do, because if he likes to incorporate a 5S or HS somewhere in it, pushblock before the S/HS and punish his S/HS whiff with a SE or 5S. If he likes to abuse 5HS/6HS in a block string, check him with a counterhit stun dipper for good damage. Play like an asshole all around, control your space, and sometimes, see if you can bait Johnny into whiffing stupid pokes from quarter to half screen away, and smacking him with a SE, 5S or sometimes, CH stundipper. If done right, these matches are often pretty long and somewhat boring.

Next up: I dunno. Requests or Ky v. May or other Ky tactics/strategies/tricks.

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Johnny does massive damage once he gets you (30-40% without coin, 50-65% with)

As long as Johnny has meter, he can easily do coin damage without coins (MSDJ, JI Killer Joker). Having a Level 2 Mistfiner does help with confirming MSDJ, though.

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Creating Chaos and Inducing Variance - Stealing Victories From People Who Play Better Than You

"You must take your opponent into a deep dark forest where 2+2=5, and the path leading out is only wide enough for one." - Mikhail Tal

Sometimes, especially at tournies, you will run into an opponent who is clearly better than you at many if not most aspects of the game, and playing your normal game or playing your character by the book will simply not work. Yet, because tournies are often short matches (best of three or maybe even single games), your chances of winning a match against such an opponent are never zero, and sometimes, luck can be on your side. Often, you can bring about such luck by creating chaos and inducing variance.

What do I mean by creating chaos and inducing variance? I would define it as reducing the difference in skill by creating highly volatile situations where the chances of your opponent making a mistake increases, even if your own chances of getting utterly crushed increases disproportinately. Usually, the creator of such high risk and high variance situations will be the one at a disavantage, but sometimes, luck will be on that person's side and reward him with a victory. With a few exceptions, top players in pretty much any game prefer to avoid such situations in order to let their skill difference and "correct play" determine the outcome. This is to snap them out of that mentality.

Now, I do not mean doing something stupid. Jumping in recklessly to challenge Ky's 6P AA when Ky has already demonstrated that he can and will use 6P when you do so and that yes, you will get counterhit every time, is not creating chaos, it is being stupid. What I am talking about it trying to place yourself in a situation where, although there are very high chances of the opponent refuting your attempt and leaving you at a worse or round losing situation, there are also high chances of you inducing a lot of damage and stealing the round away. Examples include random super (like DOT or whale), reckless and illegitimate blockstrings to induce counterhits, throwing air FRC S Stun Edges when it would be extremely risky to do so in the hopes of a counter hit into high damage combo, normal super jumping over your opponent and air dashing recklessly to confuse the opponent into doing something wrong, and so on.

Several years ago in one of the NorCal ranbats, I was up against very good Axl player. At the time, I had just taken up AC casually since retiring during the #R days and was not really all that use to AC Ky. In the first game, I tried to play the matchup straight up as Axl-Ky matches go, however, he clearly knew how to use Axl better than I knew how to play Ky, and he knew the AC matchup a lot better than I did. The result was that I got grounded into submission very quickly and lost the first game rather horribly.

So in the second game, in order to increase the variance of the match, I proceeded to blitz him extremely aggressively and put him into a difficult decision. In the process of locking him down, I was utilizing a lot of illegitamite pressure strings and tactics in order to increase the variance of the situation. Basically, if he countered correctly, I would lose 70%+ life and the initiative and with it, the game. If he countered incorrectly, he would lose roughly half of his life and get knocked down, whereupon I could blitz him again.

Normally, this would not be a wise strategy as I would lose in the long run from the sheer damage disparity. However, since the next loss would be elimination and I was up against someone who knew how to play the game better than I did, this was better than just being grounded into submission again in a straight up contest.

Luckily, he reacted incorrectly. He either did not want to enter into such complications, or perhaps he was waiting for a throw attempt to counter attack, but for whatever reason, he chose to block instead of mashing buttons. This decision isn't really a mistake; normally, mashing buttons is a stupid idea in Guilty Gear, but in this case, he really needed to press a button to get out. Instead, he sat and blocked 30 game seconds worth of seemingly perpetual blockstun, losing all of his tension and 25% life from pure chip damage. Eventually, he tried to do something, but chose the wrong button and pretty much lost all of his life and the round with it. There's probably a vid of that match somewhere out there, but I dunno where.

I still lost the match, but it shows that variance can be your friend in short matches. Of course, this isn't a viable long term solution, as your higher skilled opponent will eventually crush you even more disproportinately over the long run if you continue to do that all the time. There is no substitute for skill. But when all else fails, sometimes you just gotta roll the dice.

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Jab Whiff Throw/Crossover Greed Sever mixup

This is one of my favorite tricks. A pretty huge portion of my game revolves around trying to get people to mash buttons because they're afraid of getting thrown. After I throw my opponent a few times using various throw tricks, eventually the opponent gets irritated enough to mash buttons to avoid getting thrown when he sees one of the setups. That is when I switch and go for counterhit instead, hopefully leading to more damage than a throw would have given.

One of the tricks I use on oki is to run up to my opponent and whiff a 5P at point blank just as they're getting up. This is a pretty old trick since the early days of SF. The jab whiff is just about the same time the throw invincibility on wakeup goes away, so you can immediately throw them once the jab annimation is done. Plus, it causes opponents to freeze up because they see you are doing something and instinctively (at least in higher level play) block.

Eventually, your opponent will catch on and will start mashing throw in anticipation to the jab whiff throw. That's when you do a crossover greed sever instead. If they mashed HS expecting a throw, you will sail right over their HS and counterhit them into an air combo.

EDIT: Video Example @ 4:13

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Conducting a Post-Mortem

I am often astounded that a lot of players don't even bother to conduct a post mortem of their matches afterwards. Back when I was in the fighting game scene, footage was rare and I would have actually paid money to watch my own footage. Since there was no footage, I had to memorize what happened during each match and recall it in my mind later, which is a very inefficient way of doing things. Had I had such footage available in my day, I would have been a much better player as a result.

With the advent of sites like Youtube, there really is no excuse now. All of that practice with training mode, all of those matches you play mean absolutely nothing if you are solidifying your flaws by not figuring out what you're doing wrong from your match footage. In fact, since I rarely play now and have hideous execution errors everywhere due to lack of practice time, I think that the only thing that keeps me remotely competitive nowadays is that I peruse and break my tourney footage down before I enter the next tourney, just to see where I currently stand.

Even for the people that bother to review their own tourney footage, a lot of them refuse to check their egos and will only look at matches where they won. It is a lot more interesting to review matches where you lost, since you get to see exactly why you got annihilated and what mistakes you made. Also, a lot of people will say things like, "Well, I should've done wake up super here", or "Why didn't that scrub do X", without taking into account the context and the opponent that they were playing.

I find it helpful to vet through my own matches by mentally assigning chess notations to specific moves/situations. The notations are as follows:

?? - A horrific blunder, usually leads to an instantaneous loss

? - A mistake

?! - A dubious move, but had some logic to it.

!? - An interesting move

! - A good move

!! - Something downright amazing

I'll give an example for one round of a match that I lost:

0:09 - Ky - Greed Sever opening (?!)/Slayer get hit (?). Actually, I happened to notice that magz wasn't even looking at the screen right when the round was starting, so I figured maybe I could catch him napping. Turns out that he wasn't paying attention at all, and got hit.

0:26 - Slayer IAD (?) - Three IADs in a row, each time getting punished for small damage. You would think that he would stop, but magz likes to be hyper aggressive.

0:36 - Ky Blue burst (?!) - I probably should've held on to this burst, but I wanted to keep the initiative, and I figured he was going to 2D anyway, guaranteeing that the burst would hit.

0:46 - Ky j. d (??)/Slayer DOT (!?). At the time, I didn't know that I could die from DOT instantaneously from this position, but I should've figured that magz would attempt something hyper aggressive like that. Had he done this on reaction, it would be a ! for Slayer, but the super flash came before the J.D, so clearly was going to do this no matter what I did. It gets a !? because it's not a bad try.

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These are some very insightful posts sir. I'm trying to get back into AC now and it is nice to see some fresh information abounds. Once I can get some vids of myself I will definitely utilize your system of analysis.

Some Ky vs Slayer information would be appreciated. It is my most frequent match-up by far, but it would be interesting to hear some advice from someone far more competent than myself. I am just always getting stuffed with a lot of his higher priority moves.

Honestly any and all tricks and tactics are welcome.

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These are some very insightful posts sir. I'm trying to get back into AC now and it is nice to see some fresh information abounds. Once I can get some vids of myself I will definitely utilize your system of analysis.

Some Ky vs Slayer information would be appreciated. It is my most frequent match-up by far, but it would be interesting to hear some advice from someone far more competent than myself. I am just always getting stuffed with a lot of his higher priority moves.

Honestly any and all tricks and tactics are welcome.

Sure, I'll make Ky vs. Slayer my next writeup.

Next up:

Ky vs. Slayer

Ain's Prison

The Buppa Ball

Optimizing damage in endgame

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0:46 - Ky j. d (??)/Slayer DOT (!?). At the time, I didn't know that I could die from DOT instantaneously from this position, but I should've figured that magz would attempt something hyper aggressive like that. Had he done this on reaction, it would be a ! for Slayer, but the super flash came before the J.D, so clearly was going to do this no matter what I did. It gets a !? because it's not a bad try.

This is an interesting take on it. I don't know how magz usually plays, but if he's good at adopting to other players, then I'm guessing that he "knew" you were going for the j.D. Seeing as you did the exact same thing earlier in the match (0:17), and seem to favor the j.D as a rush defense at roughly that distance (0:20, 0:22).

In my mind, IF he actually did it to punish your j.D habits, then it's a ! move. If it's just desperation mashing, then it's more like ?!. It's hard to judge from only one round, but I'm leaning towards the former.

Anyways, I thinks it's awesome to see such a good effort to keep supporting the community. Keep it up.

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I'm with Nehle on this one, you play against him alot right? so it seems he predicted a j. whatever ( either he thought you were going to throw out a fireball or a j.d ) but in any case he knew you were going to press a button so it was a pretty good read but then again he seem like he gave no fucks that match and as you mentioned was going to do it anyway...so i would also give it a !?

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I believe that he thought I was going to do something other than block, and mashed out the DOT ahead of time to catch me doing anything.

Maybe I'm too stingy with assigning ! to anything, but IMO, ! would be buffering the super motion and then hitting the button on reaction to some move to punish the whiff, since I'm out of range to hit him with anything.

!? would be mashing out the super without any confirmation since it's not a bad try and a rather good guess.

FWIW, magz is quite reckless on offense, so I think he wouldn't have bothered trying to do this on reaction.

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Ky Vs. Slayer

IMO, this matchup is pretty godawful for Ky. I place it as part of the unholy trio of godawful Ky matchups (Slayer, Baiken, Venom). From a practical standpoint, it probably is only 4-6 in favor of Slayer overall, but it tends to feel a hell lot worse than it actually is.

The problem with this matchup is that, although Ky will tend to win out in the air to air exchanges and ground to ground exchanges (maybe even something like 60-65% of the time), that's all irrelevant until Slayer dies. Slayer's HP is completely irrelevant unless it's zero or less; the question really boils down to will he counterhit you with BBU, pile bunker, 2HS or super, sending you into a near or instantaneous loss or not. In that other 35%, Slayer will hit you with one of those, and sometimes it will be counterhit. Slayer is one of the few characters (the others being May and Eddie), where until he dies, your life lead is completely irrelevant.

So basic strategy is to always watch Slayer's meter bar, and be always mindful that if he has 25% tension, you could end up into a situation where not only do you lose, the burst would not have saved you. So the way I deal with Slayer is to get him to compromise or part with the meter with rope-a-dope or blitz tactics.

Neutral

In the neutral game, I try to find safe ways to either score a knockdown or take the initiative. You can't really get away with terribly risky things, as the risk reward is not there. For example, although Greed Sever will beat Mappa and 2HS, it will lose to Slayer stupid moving K to 40%+ life loss. Stun Dipper will beat stupid moving K and BBU, but will lose to 2HS for 40%+ life loss.

Nowadays, I try to keep it honest most of the time by trying to zone Slayer out while looking for my own way in or a way to knock him down. Air dusts work when properly positioned, Air S SE FRC into air dash is an extremely good way to seize the initiative (sometimes Air HS SE FRC, airdash will work as well), as Slayer cannot really deal with that too well. Jump K will beat or trade with him quite often as air to air, jump backwards HS will also zone him as well. Air S SE FRC is also a good way to bait Slayer into hitting an AA like 5P, 6P or 2S, and a counterhit punish of Slayer's AAs off of that will lead to very good damage.

It's also a bad idea to challenge Slayer's jump HS with 6P unless you are perfectly positioned, as you will get counterhit into the air for sadness. However, VT will trade with it in your favor, and if both of you are low on life, counter hit slash VT trade into immediate blue burst will let you recover in time to land and actually go into an air combo. It takes some practice, but it's important to recognize the distances where you should 6P vs. air throw vs. VT versus block.

If Slayer has 25%+ meter, I try to bait him into using it, either by weaving in and out of BBU/DOT range, feinting moves to perhaps get a random DOT, or otherwise, getting him to compromise somehow into parting with it. It's important to try to get Slayer to use meter, either for 1F jumps, or anything. It's also important to stop him from just dicking around and building meter from full screen away by rushing in to seize the initiative if he chooses to do that. Also, keep in mind that using typical pokes for abare, like 5HS or 5S, may lead to instant death, so you will have to restrict use of those more than you might be comfortable with. However, if you do find a way to take the initiative away, you should do so regardless of his tension.

Defense

On defense, you have to keep in mind that every poke of Slayer gives him pretty buff frame advantage. You can't do anything overly risky, so I normally restrict myself to 2p/2K, 1F jumps, FDing to push him out, air S SE FRC and, very occasionally, VT/GS or random stun dipper depending on my read. You will have to part with meter to get him off of you, but that's fine; your tension bar is not nearly as important as his tension bar.

2P is a very good abare on defense, and you should maximize your damage and tension build when you catch him with it with the rather Slayer specific funky combo of 2pxn, 2D, S VT into LJ. In fact, anytime you get 2p or 2k into an abare, this should be your automatic combo, as the godawful proration will typically make the SE FRC or FB Orb combo suck. There are many situations where this could come up, such as if you IB two hit dandy, IB 2D, Slayer screws up a 2D, etc. Of course, if Slayer screws up epically, you should use your best damaging combo instead, but if he does something you can punish only 2p or 2k, you should do the SVT combo.

Slayer also has a pretty lame overhead that he can kill you with by comboing into BBU. You just have to practice reacting to it. If you're really baller, you can CH it on reaction with 5P.

Offense

Once you get a knockdown on Slayer, your mindset is to not give him one moment to even breathe and you should blitz the hell out of him. You want to force him to part with as much meter or HP as you can possibly extract from him for as long as possible. Although Slayer has good pokes, they're kinda slow in comparison to Ky's 2P and 2K, so Slayer will be looking to escape by either 2P, 2HS, BBU, super, or backdash jump up.

If he has meter, you should restrict yourself to safe Oki options, such as safe jumps, backwards air dash, etc, to avoid the possibility of eating a random BBU or super. Once you get him to block something, you should just keep the pressure up with an assortment of 2Ps, 2Ks, 5Ks, 5HS, 2Ds and random throws, to get Slayer to part with meter by FDing or dead angling, or to get Slayer to start mashing buttons or BBU.

The only button that Slayer has that can kick Ky out at in close range is 2P. However, it's not really that good, especially if Ky is up close with frame advantage. One trick that works very well is to start a tick with 2P, pause ever so slightly as if you're going to tick throw, and then 6P 6HS or 6P 5S instead. This works extremely well if you have thrown Slayer off of tick throws or other tricks before. The 6P will counterhit Slayer if he mashes on 2P, and give you good damage as a result.

Slayer can also mash BBU to get out of Ky pressure, which is why you sometimes have to rope him into doing it. One way is to do a block string that sends you a little far, and provides the appearance that you're going to SE. Slayer will sometimes try to BBU in anticipation for the SE, but if you stun dipper (!) instead, you will counter hit him into fairly good damage. If he decided to block instead, then you FRC and continue on pressing. This will even catch a DOT or a jump attempt....sometimes. Some Slayers will try to wakeup dandy, but that's pretty bad, and you can counterhit that on reaction with 5HS.

Overall, this match is very bad simply because Slayer can kill you and take the round at any given moment, and you have to hit him a lot, so you essentially have to play a near perfect technical game in response, and forcing him to part with tension to cut off the ways for Slayer to come back by randoming you out. However, because of your advantages in air to air, in ground to ground neutral and on the initiative, it's quite doable.

Next up:

(Requests)

Ain's Prison

The Buppa Ball

Optimizing damage in endgame

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Ain's Prison

If the opponent is in the corner and Ky makes them block a jump cancelable move, Ky can jump cancel into a 270 air D forcebreak ending on uptowards on the stick. That way, Ky will float up and towards the opponent (instead of sinking straight down) after the air FB D comes out and do an assortment of mixups, like feint jump HS into 2D, jump HS proper, etc. If the opponent gets hit by the mixup, then you can bounce them into the FB D for some good damage. If the opponent doesn't get hit by the mixup, the FB D keeps them stuck in the corner anyway, and you can continue your pressure.

According to the Japanese videos I've seen, this is called "Ain's Prison" after the Japanese Ky player Ain, who uses this tactic quite a bit. At first, I was very skeptical about this tactic since I thought this is awfully slow and rather easy to defend against, so who the hell gets hit by this? It turns out that apparently LOTS of people suck and get hit by this, including the Japanese. So I've started using it more and more and yes...this is quite effective.

Here's a video example (at 0:24-0:27) where I make a half assed attempt at Ain's Prison, because I was still very skeptical about its usefulness at the time.

EDIT: Here's a video example of Ain putting someone in the prison and the ensuing mixup (@ 1:53-2:00)

Next up:

(requests)

SiN's magic air throw

Effective use of the Stun Dipper

The Buppa Ball

Optimizing Damage in Endgame

Effective use of the Greed Sever

Ky vs. May

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ive experimented with a variation of this in training mode where you get the opponent to block a jump-in, then jump cancel and go into a j.214D immediately like you described.

i've only messed with this in training mode, so the utility of this is untested, but if ain's prison is usable in a match, then maybe my trick can be applied too haha.

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ive experimented with a variation of this in training mode where you get the opponent to block a jump-in, then jump cancel and go into a j.214D immediately like you described.

i've only messed with this in training mode, so the utility of this is untested, but if ain's prison is usable in a match, then maybe my trick can be applied too haha.

I've tried that several times in tourney play (as shown in that video against Honnou), and Ain does it too sometimes.

It does work, but sometimes not quite as cleanly as close 5S, 6HS or 2D, as Ain would normally do, since if you do, for example, a j. S, JC into the prison and try to mixup into 2D, sometimes the FB star will be too close to the opponent and both the 2D and FB star will hit simultaneously, which stops you from comboing it into a close 5S. Othertimes, the FB star will be so close that the opponent can do a standing block to get rid of it.

The difficulty is more of the spacing in the jump situation than it is in the actual execution. I think that is why Ain prefers doing it off of 6HS or 2D, since it gives him a lot more space to work with.

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SiN's magic air throw

Those of us who had the unfortunate experience to play against SiN and his "suck the fun out of the game" style of trench warfare play almost certainly know what I am talking about. Unfortunately, that is mostly only a small audience of top players and people who have played in So-Cal. Despite his tendency to commit the most inexplicable execution blunders and his inability to do combos involving more than four consecutive button presses, SiN has placed in top 8 or top 16 at Evo since 2k2 in a huge variety of games, from CvS2 to MvC2 (?!), Tekken (??!) and GGXX (??!?!?!?!?!), even recently placing in top 8 for ST HD Remix at Evo2k9. He was also often regarded as having one of the the best Captain Commandos in the world for MvC2. Even so, from a casual player's perspective, watching his match videos in any game will leave you with nothing except for a "wow...he scrubbed that guy out one hit at a time, what a lucky scrub" impression. You have to play him to really appreciate his level of play.

For those of us who have played him, he does one trick that we often called "the magic air throw", or "SiN's magic airthrow", where he air throws people when they're doing crossovers (ambiguous or otherwise) in every game that has an air throw, leaving his opponent with a "WTF" feeling. In reality, he is doing one heck of an option select. As applied to GG, when an opponent is just above you, the "SiN's magic aithrow" is to either a) tiger knee backwards HS if the opponent is just above or just above and behind you, or b) 270 from down to uptowards to upback, HS if the opponent is just above or above and in front of you.

This provokes an option select where one of two things can occur:

1) You get a magical looking airthrow (example @ 2:03-2:05), and yes, you can inexplicably airthrow crossovers this way.

2) Your opponent reacts and attacks too early, causing a chicken block which you can land and punish (example @ 3:34-3:36), or if it turned into an IB, you can airthrow them immediately after blocking

The only problem with SiN's magic aithrow is that it's so damn cool that you'll be tempted to replace all of your anti-airs with it instead. You should fight the temptation to do that, especially in GG, where you'll have situations where more damaging AAs (e.g. 6P into VT loop) would've served you better. Rather, you should reserve it for situations where you cannot afford to trade hits, if your other AA's won't come fast enough to save you, or if you have no idea what's going on in the screen but you notice that your opponent is in the right distance to attempt the magic airthrow.

I consider this to be one of my biggest trade secrets to a point where I was quite reluctant to share it in writing. However, since I'm essentially retired now, I thought I would share it as a gift to future fighting game players. It has served me very well in many different fighting games, and GGXX is not an exception. So give it a try!

Next up:

(requests)

The Buppa Ball

Eat and run

Effective use of the Stun Dipper

Optimizing Damage in Endgame

Effective use of the Greed Sever

Ky vs. May

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He has good spacing actually. That more than makes up for combos when playing with Ky. The "magical air throw" trick has been around since at least slash, well that's when I see people start to use it anyway. It's fun, I liked doing it in the corner to get out of there!

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He has good spacing actually. That more than makes up for combos when playing with Ky. The "magical air throw" trick has been around since at least slash, well that's when I see people start to use it anyway. It's fun, I liked doing it in the corner to get out of there!

His spacing is very good, which is why I use him as it fits my playing style....but a lot of times, it doesn't feel like it's enough, especially in matches against Slayer or May. You can only keep the tide away for so long. :v:

The magical airthrow trick works in every game that has 1) a <2 frame airthrow, 2) air blocking, and 3) landing recovery. It actually works even better in XX and #R because you have the FD option select to tack on as well.

I stopped playing shortly after #R came out, but at that time, I only saw people in the know (e.g. those who played SiN) doing that trick...though it wouldn't surprise me if people caught on around slash or so. But yeah, seeing SiN do magic airthrows in CvS2, MvC2 and GGXX was quite a sight to behold at the time.

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Everybody's style is subjective to if it works or not. If your not ready to make best out of the random hits then, like me you have to rely on the spacing and Put yourself at an ideal scenario where you feel comfortable to get your best man combos. For me slayer was the easiest to zone cause I would sit back and 5H when he did just about anything. But that could just be the style of the slayers I used to play.

I feel like an old guy but boy did I love those FD option selects. Reload Ky really was my favorite.

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The Buppa Ball

The Buppa Ball is a ghetto trick that only Buppa used to do. Since he stopped playing, nobody else uses it. It's a dubious attempt to maintain an initiative and to mindscrew your opponent.

One basic Ky tactic is when you launch a CSE, you FRC and then do jump towards k or p to see if your opponent attempted to punish what was in reality a safe CSE. You can often catch many people with the standard Ky air combo this way.

The Buppa Ball is an extension of that and the FRC CSE glitch where the CSE follows Ky. Normally the safe CSE distance is slightly outside airdash range. However, you can actually get away with being a little bit closer by doing a CSE FRC into immediate backdash, so when your opponent tries to do an IAD punish, his attack ends up going through your backdash, and you punish him with counterhit CSE, because the CSE will drag backwards along with Ky's backdash due to the CSE glitch. That is known as the "Buppa Ball", after the Ky player, Buppa.

Once you catch your opponent once or twice with that, you can start to get away with unsafe CSEs, such as those without any FRC, as your opponent will not really have a good idea what is safe and what is not. By doing this, you can convince your opponent to stay in perpetual blockstun, until he does something stupid and loses. With the advent of the CSE forcebreak, you can also sometimes substitute the backdash FRC into just the forcebreak, which will catch an airdash.

Here's a vid of Buppa at work, launching a myriad of Buppa Balls, and then getting away with not FRCing because he's mindscrewed his opponent. Note that he still loses anyway.

It does require a lot of setup, in that you have to portray yourself as a reckless attacking blitz Ky, you have to catch him at least once with the counterhit CSE, and your opponent has to be at a relatively decent level. So all in all, it's not really a good idea, especially if your opponent does catch on. However, if you need to create some chaos and variance and are out of ideas, you can give it a try. I've used it a few times, and by utilizing variations of the Buppa Ball, I managed to lock people into seemingly perpetual blockstun for 30+ game seconds.

If you do manage to get it to work, it looks like you've caught your opponent in a Strider-Doom Trap, so it does kinda look cool.

Next up:

(requests)

(Defensive Tactics with Ky)

Effective use of the Stun Dipper

Optimizing Damage in Endgame

Effective use of the Greed Sever

Ky vs. May

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this is the greatest thread in the history of dustloop. the ky forum has needed this tender love and care for so long. thank you for your contributions, sir.

if i might make a request... Ky vs Sol, please?

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