Sol vs Baiken

[Spirit Juice]

Matchup Statistics:

Openers:

Okizeme:

Punishes:

Counters:

Anti airing:

Zoning:

Their game plan:

Strategy:

Char specific details:

-- Member Submitted Info Section (if valid).

[HolyOrderChipp]

Finally! My dream of a matchup forum has been realized! And I have the first thread! So, how do you fight Baiken? Guard Cancels are tough to deal with at first, but there are some things you can do. According to, uh, Spirit Juice, I think it was, maybe Hatred Edge, canceling into 2D avoids all her Guard Cancels. Generally, when using moves where the number of frames between the first active frame and the time you've recovered are less than 12, you're safe from regular Guard Cancels. Whether a move is normally safe on block has no bearing on this. I don't care if your move is + One Billion on block, it could still be punished with Guard Cancels if it doesn't recover fewer than thirteen frames after it's blocked. This is because Baiken uses her Guard Cancels to cancel block stun, and therefore moves that have more block stun, even if they have the same frame advantage or disadvantage, are more unsafe. I didn't just pull 12 frames out of my ass, either. That's the startup on Youshijin, her fastest tensionless Guard Cancel. Now, of course, no Baiken will guard cancel on the first frame of blockstun, and you will rarely bait Guard Cancels with fast recovering moves, but here are the ones that can be used in such a manner against Youshijin, and therefore her others, except perhaps Ouren. 5P 2P 2K 2S Remember that you can use less safe moves against her slower Guard Cancels, and that they're all unsafe on block, so murder her when you bait one like this. Now on to how to adapt your block strings. You can cancel into 2D or a jump to bait Guard Cancels. The real way to hit Baiken, though, is by using first-hit mixups and plentiful tick throws. She loves to block, so throw her when you can, and take off a huge chunk of life when you do. One of your best tick throws, 2P, is also safe from Guard Cancels! As with everyone against Baiken, if you just use your same old tactics, you will get killed. You just have to be a little more patient than usual and adapt. You can punish her mistakes pretty severely, and while she can do big damage, she can't really do it without tension.

[Nives]

playing really patiently and holding up on ur defense til u get the one hit to take her almost to death is usually my strategy on defense. running in on her is usually not a good idea. j.S, and j.H is really annoying. DP does beat both, but resorting to having to DP all the time is not the best idea, though DP whenever she airdashes in with an attack like j.S or j.H since it is guaranteed. u can actually deal with both of them by dashing under it and countering on the other side if u notice baiken doing them a bit too high. that actually gives the illusion sol has normals that can actually deal with her ground-to-air stuff. 5K is good and all, but it gets pretty solidly snuffed by j.S and j.H if baiken is doing it at the right range. 5K only beats it out if baiken is too close with her j.S. I usually see good offensive baikens airdash in with tatami a lot, and to deal with that, i usually just try to dodge tatami completely instead of blocking it and allowing her to get her offensive game on me. if she gets ontop of u, she has a strong offense, but her moves upclose against sol's are slower. all her weapons aren't part of her hitbox, so at a lil less than upclose, everything gets snuffed out, since sol's weapon doesnt really cover that much ground, so u want to get into her immediate range, where u can command throw, and do all the other good stuff sol's offense has. i notice that a lot of sol's stuff doesnt get hit by ouren at all. dashing GF, 6H, 2D, and i believe 6P won't get hit by it either. anything where he leans forward slightly. so with quarter tension, u can do stuff like dashing GF -> FRC -> block, and pause momentarily. From there, u can figure out what baiken wants to do, and start building a better strategy to match how your opponent plays.

[Xtra_Zero]

Wild Throw her stupid block-happy ass. Block that, bitch!

[HolyOrderChipp]

So, if I'm doing a block string, and I jump to bait a guard cancel, what should I do? My first instinct is falling j.H, 5K, 2D, BR. If I use a falling j.D, what kind of spacing is required for what kind of combo? Or will Baiken be safe? If I can only continue into pressure, my instinct would be to use a j.H vs. 2D vs. 5D vs. Wild Throw mixup.

[faultydefense]

delay a j.H just a bit and that'll bait a H or S counter as well as option selecting to throw the H version (watch for the P counter though if you get too jump happy) if you manage to catch them in the air with the j.H you can hit with that, land, 2H, j.H, sidewinder. If you catch them on the ground its your punish of choise. As far as blockstrings go, you can't give a staple blockstring because the point is to vary it as much as possible. Some baikens may very well throw a dead angle on the very first move blocked. I tend to avoid gunflame pressure in this matchup and just GF feint or jump canceling/airdashing back in to "pressure" If you land a falling j.D on a baiken, you can hit a clean hit fafnir if you hit her fairly deep. If you hit it low enough you can actually follow with a 5K > 2H > j.K > j.S > dj.S > dj.D > VV or something similar if you're just trying to get that lil extra damage...i don't really value knockdowns in this matchup, just don't chase her in the air. Because she's so light its hard to get j.d > j.BR > 5K > sidewinder followups on her. I'll test some more baiken specifics when I get home if I remember. edit: also, people keep mentioning her block happy ass, all the baikens I've played are very mobile, spending most of thier time air dashing back and forth behind tatami mats, you really have to work, just to put her on the ground long enough to wild throw her. At the same time, don't chase her down wildly, its just freebies for her once you're both in the air. You have to anti air AROUND her which can get really annoying and limit follow ups

[faultydefense]

Actually got a good deal of baiken match-ups lately. The bitch is dumb...period. Her frame traps are ridiculous, if you ever block a j.H, 2H, or a tatami mat DO NOT TRY TO POKE OUT OF IT PERIOD. You will get counter hit into 50% or more. I've known that baiken could be really mobile and hard to pin down into wild throw, what I didn't realize was that she has a better offense than sol. 5H will beat any of your ground pokes from any range if it comes all the way out...and its a lot faster than you'd think it would be, certainly faster than your own 5H. If you gunflame, ALWAYS FRC it. If you try to zone her with gunflame and you don't FRC it she can IAD into jump slash from 90% of the screen away, I promise I'm not exaggerating. This nets her a counter hit, when her j.S nets her a counter hit it also nets her a falling tatami mat, her falling tatami mat nets her big damage and knockdown >.> Honestly I think her best move in this match is j.S, it beats anything sol does from just about any range, it anti-grounds sol better than even her j.H. All you have is VV, so you have to play scare tactics just to get her to block in the air. Once you do manage to get her to block, it doesn't really mean you have the advantage. The only moves you can safely pull off without RCing is something into a jump cancel or 2P/5P. (Actually if they're not expecting it you can bait a counter with bandit bringer because unless they do the dead angle really fast then you'll be able to recover and block/punish.) Sol's j.H is great in this match as long as you can pull it off low enough to the ground, it recovers instantly and great for baiting counters. Some nice setups is just teching off a hit and Airdashing in on her. Her best anti-airs are all her counters, so theres not too much to fear from a grounded baiken while you're in the air. She beats sol clean though air to air, and ground to ground, and will try to frustrate you into risky shit while you're on the ground. Also, I hear how 2D is the bane of baiken's existance all the time, but don't think that ending a blockstring with 2D is the end-all be all equalizer in this match. All baiken has to do is wait for you to do it then counter THAT. You cannot be predictable with blockstrings, not to mention 2D isn't jump cancelable. Honestly, the best thing I have in this matchup is VV > roman cancel. Do not chase a baiken backwards, her air-dash back > tatami mat will beat any attempt to chase her as well as net a counter hit. And on wake-up, you're usually eating a tatami so unless you hit that perfect reversal VV everytime, you're gonna have to learn to block, and then learn to use dead angle, because baiken builds guardbar like a motherfucker. For baiken specific combos, enjoy 2D > BR RC > SW > SW > SW... also I have to superjump after her chasing extra damage quite often, get used to it...I hate lightweights Sol doesn't hate baiken any more than the rest of the cast hates her, but she's still a bitch to play against, at the same time, i thank god for vv and I can see how sol can equalize the playing field with his damage output so that its not far in either's favor. But this is still my least favorite matchup next to slayer.

[VR-Raiden]

Thanks for this info, I need help with this match up. sorry for bitching, but god...I hate playing Baiken -_- Gunflame is pretty much useless here.

[Nives]

if baiken airdashes in with j.S, sometimes, i will GF -> FRC block, and score the counterhit on gunflame.

[A.X.I.S.]

what would be the best means of starting a fight with her? is it ok to make the first move against baiken? can i at least run in and fd into a vv or gv? just fishing for advice.

[faultydefense]

5S while buffering a VV motion d( '.' )b

[A.X.I.S.]

damn that works thanks.