[CSE] Rachel vs. Tager

[gli]

Summary:

Ideally you want to sit on a life lead against Tager and use your zoning + wind mobility to minimize risk. Tager is not a character you want to fight upclose for most of the match since his reward for winning at close quarters is so much greater than yours.

To close the gap Tager now has access to a B-sledge with charge properties. At full charge it allows him to travel further while keeping the projectile guard properties. Keep this in mind as you are zoning him.

His damage increase to his combos make this match-up more difficult to play in neutral.

Fullscreen:

Most of the time you will want to be at fullscreen setting up frog or pumpkin while zoning very carefully with cannon shots. The purpose of cannon shots is to just control Tager so that you can achieve a higher goal (force him to block shots so George can get near or force him to sledge so that you can setup a pumpkin punish).

Tempest Dahlia is very sparingly useful since he can just sledge on reaction if you are using it predictably.

With frog:

Ideally you will want to confirm any kind of frog hit and use that time to get in close to either hitconfirm a combo or do a mix-up that corner carrys / keeps Tager in corner.

With pumpkin:

Use this to punish anything Tager does if you are just out of range to hit with your normals. This is usually the case if you are trying to avoid his sledges and you confirm that he whiffed (be very careful of the follow-up sledge since that also has guard properties).

With frog and pumpkin:

Having frog out will make Tager want to kill it with something. This is where pumpkin can punish Tager for trying to kill George.

Midscreen:

• 5B and 2B are not really useful to throw out since Tager has many ways of guarding against projectiles. Notably you will see his sledges guarding against these normals.
  
• 6B is very useful for keeping sledges at bay. There's added risk involved now since the jump cancel property is removed in Extend.
  
• 6A is really useful if you see him trying to approach from the air. Beats his j.B and j.C a lot of the time.
  
• 3C ender is neutral on block. Vulnerable to IB > 360/720 punish if you are magnetized or at close enough distance. 3[C] might be more useful to end pressure. In addition, throwing out and holding 3C while Tager is charging B-sledge is a near guaranteed knockdown. Just don't be too far away so that the hammer follow-up actually hits you. You want to be between the endpoints of the sledge's travel.
  

Pressure:

Rachel pressure -

Fuzzy guard is really useful here. You don't really want to go for empty jump low mix-up since he has access to 360/720. 4B mix-up has the same kind of risk. Do not autopilot 5B > 5CDC here because there is a gap big enough for 360/720 to fit in.

Tager pressure -

Be aware of his tick throw setups. 5A > wait > 360 is very common. During Gadget Finger mix-up you will have to guess. Backdash + 4D is one of your safest options in trying to escape. Jumping out will avoid 360/720 but you risk eating an Atomic Collider. Guard if you see that he is willing to go for 5A meaty most of the time (this actually carries the most risk since you might get 360/720).

Additional Information:

3C against Tager

[gli]

Basic information up. Tager is much scarier in Extend.

[kotokot]

fuck sledges. You can't punish it anymore. And chair is dead. Against rachel now he have safe blockstrings.

And now tager have better resets and crossups.

[swordiris]

I noticed he was scarier.

I was confident before fighting a tager on ranked. Turns out he knew how to charge sledge and I paid for my arrogance.

[kotokot]

worst thing is that 236A is -2 in csex. Charge isn't that bad, too slow. And chair is now slower. 3C>236A all day since only Rachel can't do nothing about this, lol.

Tager have some 2B crossdowns now and whiff>720 resets.

[Chazmobile]

worst thing is that 236A is -2 in csex. Charge isn't that bad, too slow. And chair is now slower. 3C>236A all day since only Rachel can't do nothing about this, lol.

Tager have some 2B crossdowns now and whiff>720 resets.

Surely you can IB the s236a and have a better chance of getting away?

[Sakaku]

Yes you can. As long as he doesn't have meter you can also begin pressure. He can still backdash though.

[[SpA]Relentless]

Why are you crying about a move that's -2 on block? You get the advantage if you guard it and it's easy to IB..

if you get into a Tager blockstring then you seriously did something wrong and deserve it anyway. Rachel dominates the neutral game in this MU.

[Sakaku]

Because he can still 360A/720 us after we blocked it without IB.

And I don't know about that, Tager seems to get in much more in CSEX. His new Sledge can really be a pain in the ass.

[swordiris]

Can sledge be punished by 6DC? That sledge really scares me. This match is more than mindless zoning now as I believe Tager is no longer shit tier.

[Graymalkyn]

You should be able to react to most sledges with 6CD.. although I'm not sure how the new charge aspect of sledge affects your ability to do so.

[kirbster]

An awesome thing to do on a crouching Tager is windless rising j.a. You can do it after 5a or 5b and follow up with j.3cd for pressure, or hit confirm into a combo.

[Herbal Grey]

Rising windless j.a is great for when you have George wakeup Oki also because it's safe against any of tager's wakeup options other than mtw. You then have time to land and execute a combo before George is finished shocking them.

[[SpA]Relentless]

j.A - trolling Tager since 2008

[gli]

Okay so what's this new tech I'm seeing these Tager's doing online all of a sudden?

It's like, Voltic Charge > Sledge follow-up.

[Tari]

Okay so what's this new tech I'm seeing these Tager's doing online all of a sudden?

It's like, Voltic Charge > Sledge follow-up.

Do you mean a combo, or do you just mean the Voltic Charge counter attack?

[gli]

Yeah counter attack. I try to hit them out of charge and sometimes they'll have the follow-up sledge attack as a response.

[Tari]

Yeah, it's just an option Tager has, now. If he absorbs an attack with Voltic, he can cancel into the follow-up move.

[Deikan]

I suck at reading frame date, but did Tager's Sledge Hammer get buffed in terms of recovery and frame advantage? I tried punishing it but I don't know if I'm slow or if I'm punishing incorrectly.

[[SpA]Relentless]

A Sledge has a little less recovery, you can't directly punish it anymore. If you IB you're at a huge advantage though (you can get randomed though with 720 or MTW I believe), on normal block you're can also get A bustered.

[gli]

Some stuff I have been testing regarding oki against Tager.

3C > frog carries more risk than

3C > pumpkin (with wind).

As far as I've tested one of the safest okizeme options against Tager is:

3C(any number of hits) > jump forward 3D > barrier guard

What this does for you:

• Any normal Tager throws out gets meatied by pumpkin.
  
• Tager cannot jump out because of pumpkin.
  
• Atomic Collider gets CH because of pumpkin.
  
• 720 gets CH from the winded pumpkin.
  
• MTW gets baited and you are barrier guarding already.
  
• You will block or avoid any sledge attempts.
  
• If pumpkin wasn't truly meaty (your timing was a little off) then Voltic Charge will guard against pumpkin hit but you have time to punish his recovery. Otherwise VC gets CH before it gets to the guard points.
  
• If Tager attempts to delay tech or doesn't tech at all pumpkin will punish this.
  
• If Tager tries to Gold Burst you will block it. There are only a few frames where a Gold Burst will come out so Tager might instead get a defensive burst on accident. While this will knock you back this will reduce Tager's primers.
  
• Of course, Tager cannot Astral since pumpkin will hit him out of it.
  
  
  
  What Tager can do about this:
  
  • Backdash means you will have to guess what he will do next.
    
  • If he uses 360A you can react to this by jumping out and attempt a whiff punish.
    
  • Defensive Burst
    

  Frog Okizeme - 3C(full 3 hits) > frog:

  [*]The absolute safest thing you can do is sj.7D. This will avoid everything Tager can do even Spark Bolt. However, you won't really make it in time to punish Tager if he gets caught by George.

  The 3C > meaty pumpkin setup is also really effective against other characters. How effective is up to more testing. For example, against Hakumen it might not be as good as 3C > frog.

[Herbal Grey]

end combos in 5cc

[gli]

Sometimes you don't get 5CC though. So you gotta prepare yourself.

[Herbal Grey]

what situation is there where you end a combo in 3c? i'm pretty sure on tager, any combo situation should end in 5cc or 6b lobelia or 5b iad backwards

edit: and those options are only windless options....if you have wind, end every combo in 5d 3c 236b 5a 5b --- aircombo if you have at least one wind stock. you've very convincingly outlined how dangerous anything is off a 3c ender. an aircombo ender is much safer and creates distance between you and tager, which is the situation you always want to be in, whether you have the life lead or not.

[gli]

Good points.

But consider the situation that you are not doing a combo. You score random 3C because of the neutral game. Mostly, you are aiming to punish sledges.