Venom vs Leo

[DaiAndOh]

Discuss the matchup here

[GodPress]

So a few things to note about this matchup:

I think its in Venom's favor. 

c.S(3) hits crouching,

Leos HS fireball has a fair bit of durability, I believe its 4 regular balls or lvl 3 Stinger to nullify. You can use QV to negate it and give yourself a nice charged ball. 

Backturn counter will reflect a projectile, didn't test to see if it'd reflect a charged SA or just nullify.

His backturned super will punish careless ball summons from anywhere on screen. 

S>H formation is particularly useful because of his low airdash, looks like he has a lot of trouble getting in.

 

IBing the last hit of his Rekka allows for a c.S punish & big damage with iad JSHSD>JKSHSD>6H>oki. It's apparently -7 on block without IB so you're free to go for c.S without but I find his rekkas incredibly easy to IB. 

Same goes for IBing the second hit if they're looking for backturn shenanigans (rekka x2 > bt K/D) without IB you'll either trade or straight lose if they just go for BT D(counter).

 

Blockstrings into 236H (run through slash) can be punished by 2k/c.S as he's running through for CH.

 

KSH > bt is punishable without IB with 2k/c.S however you can get tagged by the counter.

 

BT 214HS(unblockable overhead) can be punished effectively with Blitz, Throw, 2K or c.S. The usefulness of these depends on how the overhead is done. For example, I've had a lot more success just blitzing the OH if the Leo does bt K > bt S > Overhead, you're in blockstun for quite a while and a 2k/c.S punish is pretty risky here where as bt K > Overhead has a huge gap and the best punish would be to c.S(3) iad staple. 

[Eshi]

When you're blocking your opponent's pressure, what's the best response to punish his recovery? I'm having trouble with Leo and only learned after the matches that you have to IB his basic strings. But even then, I'm not sure what normals or specials Venom uses to punish moves with short recovery.

Best meterless punish is easily close Slash but the follow-up depends on if they're left crouching or standing on the move you're punishing. Luckily this doesn't matter on Leo, who all three hits of close Slash always connect on. You obviously must be close to use it, but it does have super fast start-up.

[VictoryThief]

I happen to have been thinking about leo vs venom and looking at frame data because I'm working on commentary for my matches. If leo does what amounts to his rekka, ending with 236+h and you don't instant block then he has +1 frame advantage and you have no normals that can even become active fast enough to beat his brynhildr k, and you won't beat bryn~s either, since it's basically a disjointed hitbox and comes out in 6 frames. c.S is your fastest normal at 5 frames, so best case scenario without instant blocking is that c.S trades with bryn~s, which isn't really ideal. If you didn't instant block you could also attempt to throw depending on how close leo is, but bryn-k has throw invuln, so that's not that great of an option either. He can't cancel the stance without eating free attacks, so he's not going to throw you, so if you didn't instant block, then the best option is just to block low and look for high attacks, since you can just react to those. If he does that high-hitting special that staggers through your block if you block high, then the best option is to backdash. It's only active for one frame, so it should be easy to backdash.

If you do instant block, the best option is probably to just throw him or teleport out, since 236+H when instant blocked is -3, which is too small for your moves to become active, but if he's mashing he'll eat attacks for sure.Throwing will, depending on the combo you choose to do, knock him away from you or corner him. If you do c.S and you're too close, then he can throw you before the move is active and your hit box gets bigger when you do moves, so it's probably not technically correct, and he can just block. I'd argue that you want to stay half a screen away from leo, because his dash sucks really bad, so you can just zone the shit out of him if he's half a screen a way. There's really not a lot he can do about it. Poke a lot with 5S over stinger aims I think, because he's likely to try to IAD if you do anything on the ground, and you want him to commit before you 6P him. Try to leave some of the balls you summon unhit, so if he corners you, you can teleport out if you instant block the end of his pressure strings.

 

You basically win this match up if you have enough space to zone him, since his movement is pretty bad.

 

Edit: I just found out that I've been missing out on the majority of throw option-selects in guilty gear for a decade. The only one's I've been taking advantage of are burst option selects. With this in mind, I'm revising my suggestion for when you instant block leo's 236+H. You want to OS 6HS+S. If he's doing bryn~k, then he eats CH-c.S, and if he's doing almost anything else you throw him. It's probably the option venom is designed to use in this situation.

[GodPress]

Rekka ending in 236H? As in 236S > 236S > 236H? Thats -6 without IB. 236H is victim to its 24F startup; you can just c.S(Or c.S throw OS) at any point as he's running through you. 

[VictoryThief]

well there you go. you can just throw him a lot of the time.

[xxteefxx]

Was just looking around in here. I believeleo vs is total venom favor. Yet to find a solid leo to give me trouble at all.

First >> learn leos strings. It is easy

2- you can iad escape from over head ( watch for randoms of srk, you can bait scrubs).

3- you can backdash from his pressure in between frame traps and punish severely ( even corner).

4-his overheads are punishable by 2p or 2 sstingeraim or whatever for major capitalize of dmg

-IB as you said and rejection which is worth it

That regarding his preasure