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How to Play Axl Low

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If you've been watching a lot of +R vids, you may have noticed that there's this character that wins a lot in Japan called Axl Low. So you've said to yourself "This guy seems OP and cool, I'll play him. I wonder if there's an easy place to learn my tech?" Then you get on Dustloop and look for information on the Axl forums. Wouldn't it be nice if there was just a quick guide that tells you what you need to learn? Well obviously now there is, and that's probably why you clicked on this thread. In the interest of being more quick and simple, I'm not going over trivial stuff like movelists. You can look that up in the game, or on the wiki, or whatever. This guide won't be covering many specific combos, matchups, or situational tactics, because there are threads intended to discuss that stuff in more depth. In fact, even most specifics of how to do the stuff in this guide will probably be discussed in more depth later in other threads. This guide is about things you should learn and mentality you should adopt if you are picking up this character and want to be competitive with him.

Step 1: Learn to block

Nothing will bring up your success rate with Axl better than learning to block. Learn when it's not your turn to swing, be patient, and just block attacks. Block low, wait for overheads, FD in the air. Axl has bad reversal options, and there's not really a way around that. Pay attention and learn to react fast. If you are playing against good players, you should be blocking a lot.

And since we're playing Guilty Gear here, this also means that blocking is hard and you need to be doing advanced defense most of the time. FD stuff when you need space but not time, IB when you need time but not space. Learn to backdash at the right times. Axl's backdash is horrible compared to most of the cast. It's also your only invulnerable thing besides your super. It's your best option in a lot of situations, so you have to use it. Learn to smell throws and jump them or DP them. Axl doesn't have a 5F jab, so tick throws are a huge weakness you're going to have to cover. Get in the habit of running forward and FDing, then letting go of the buttons so you can instant block. It's a tool you need badly.

If your defense isn't good, you're going to have a bad time as Axl. There are lots of guides out there about defensive options in Guilty Gear. I wrote an article about FD and IB a while ago, and there are other resources for it. Every character in the game benefits from good defense, but as Axl, you do not have the benefit of safe options designed for defense. You've got to use the system mechanics available to everyone, and get as much out of them as possible.

Step 2: Learn your gatlings and meterless knockdown combos.

Especially in +R, where Axl got the ability to combo from e.g. f.S, 2H, 2P, 3P, 5P at max range, etc., you need to know what you can chain into what, and what combo you do to get the bare minimum knockdown combo into rensengeki (Rensen. [4]6S. The green thing. Very important move.) (Or kokuugeki (j.63214S. Big ol' circle in the air. Also pretty important) if you're too far to get knockdown). If your throw combo to guaranteed knockdown is throw-rensen, that's fine. Do that. Knockdown is great in GG.

Did you know that 6K can chain into 6H? That 2P chains into f.s now? That f.S-rensen is a real combo from most ranges? Nearly any hit can confirm at least two ways into rensen. You should be able to get knockdown from almost any normal you hit with, and at least 120 or so damage from the things you can't. With no meter. Did you know you can't combo c.S into 5H on a standing Kliff? Now you do. You're welcome.

A key advantage Axl has over a lot of characters is his ability to get a knockdown off of a lot of situations. You don't always need or want knockdown, but you should know when you can get it, and how to do it. Most of the time, this involves confirming a short combo. So you should know how to do that.

Step 3: Convince yourself that this is not a zoning character.

I've heard a ton of definitions of zoning, and until we nail down a real operational definition of the term, it's not that useful to talk about things using it. So I'm going to define it for my purposes here. Zoning means making parts of the screen unsafe by throwing out moves. It helps a lot of those moves happen to be projectiles that last longer than it takes to spawn them, but that's not necessary. You may notice that this definition is super broad, and that by that definition, every character in at least Guilty Gear, and probably most fighting games, can zone sometimes. Axl has some great zoning tools from mid-range in f.S and 3P. But then, Axl can do literally anything well in mid-range. Against lower-mobility characters, 5H is a pretty good zoning tool too.

That being said, Axl is a pretty terrible choice of character if you want to zone a lot. There are several very effective zoning-oriented characters in Guilty Gear, and Axl is not one of them. His moves tend to cover a few but not many of your opponent's choices, for the most part are not very disjointed, and while they do have a lot of active frames, they also have a lot of recovery. The only projectiles Axl has access to take longer to recover than they stay out, and FRCing the summon will make them disappear. If you're playing Axl in a neutral game and throw out a move that does not connect, 90% of the time you have fucked up in a big way. You will more than likely take moderate-to-serious amount of damage and/or be at a severe disadvantage.

Basically, you just don't have the tools you'd expect a zoning-focused character to have, and pretending you do is a great way to lose. If you like zoning a lot and want to pursue a zoning-oriented playstyle, there are plenty of great characters for it in Guilty Gear. I've been picking up Justice lately, and she's hella fun. Testament, Faust, Zappa, and Ky are also decent picks, and there are even ways to play characters like Slayer or Jam to be more effective at zoning than Axl is.

Obviously no one's perfect and I'm not saying you should never try to throw out moves, or even that zoning isn't sometimes an effective way to play. Just that I see a lot of people try to play Axl like he's got a lot of real zoning tools, and they tend to get wrecked. The zoning mentality of controlling space with hitbox and constraining your opponent's decisions is a good thing to learn about, but trying to play Axl and focus primarily on zoning will not lead to success.

Step 4: Start tracking and punishing

So if Axl's not a zoning character, what are all those long range moves for? Two things: pressure and punishing stuff. We'll talk about your pressure later, punishing is more important. Generally, when people talk about "punishing" in a fighting game, they mean hitting someone in the recovery of their move. A true punish is one that they literally did not have time to do anything about (In GG, technically punishes on block are less guaranteed when the opponent has meter, because of RCs). I'm invoking the concept because it's the mentality you should adopt in the neutral game with Axl. Except instead of punishing them for not having you in enough frames of stun to recover, you're punishing them for being in the wrong place.

For initial intents and purposes, your primary tools for this purpose are 2S, 6K, 5P, 5K, f.S, and 2H. Think about where those moves hit, how fast they come out, and what positioning they punish. Practice being essentially a targeting system. Spend matches watching your opponent, trying to predict where they're going to move, and sniping them with one of those 6 tools. Wait until you are pretty certain that you know where they're going before you throw something out. Remember that if you don't hit them, you've just guessed wrong and it is going to be bad for you. Your opponent will either hit your chains and get damage, or at the very least get their approach uncontested.

In actuality Axl has a ton more tools than that for this playstyle, including Kokuugeki, Rensen, Rashousen, 5H, 3P, j.K, H Benten, airthrow, etc. You can punish things like a midscreen backdash with rensen or raeisageki, a lot of approaches with Kokuugeki, any long-range setup with Rashou, etc. Axl can play entire matches just by tracking the opponent and punishing them for their position in space. If your opponent techs or bursts in a predictable way, that means you know where they are. If you are calm and throw out the right punish, you get your damage or at least your pressure because of their positioning.

Guilty Gear's neutral game is in large part about movement. Most characters have a ton of movement options available to them, ways to cancel movement options, and lots of attacks that have weird trajectories, and sometimes can be FRC'd and are then more movement options to deal with. A lot of high-level matches have sections in them that are just positioning, and exchanges get won because of smart movement decisions. Jam has a move that's just a weird movement option with recovery. Japanese players use it a ton. It's a really good move. Being able to punish movement and positioning options is a very strong niche for a character to have. If you get into the mentality of punishing your opponent for their position on the screen, you will be a stronger Axl player.

Step 5: Learn Rensen FRC. Just do it.

People bitch about FRCs a lot, but they're really not that hard, and they add a lot to your gameplan. Axl in particular has a lot of great FRCs. Axl Bomber has an FRC now, and it's a great way to maintain safe pressure from the air, or get from the air to neutral on the ground faster than your opponent. Kokuugeki and Benten (S) are extremely strong tools for poking once you get their FRCs down, making them safe. Raeisageki's FRC gets you both damage and mixup. 3H FRC is a great way to bait out reversals on okizeme. Learning any of these FRCs will give you a little boost to your overall ability to win games, but you shouldn't practice them at all until you have Rensen FRC down.

Rensen FRC is a 2F window in a pretty intuitive place, but since you're going to be confirming it from a bunch of things, you should probably learn a few different timings, since hitpause is going to fuck with your timing if you're doing what sane people do in airdashers and buffering the special input into the pause. Learn to rensen FRC from neutral, from 2K (Level 1 hitpause), K (Level 2), f.S (Level 3), c.S (Level 4), and 5H (Level 5). Then practice it from every other special-cancellable move Axl has. The timings should correspond 1-to-1 with what level the move you cancelled from is. If you can do the FRC visually instead of by muscle memory, you'll have an easier time, but you should really just drill it into your head and make sure you know it.

I can't stress how important it is to have this down. Rensen FRC gives you a tool that reaches about halfway across the screen in 15 frames, gives you a huge launch that you can always combo from, is +33 on normal standing guard, and now that we're in +R, builds up the opponent's guardbar. If you can't FRC rensen, you lose almost all of your ability to keep up pressure, about 80-90% of your ground confirms into damage, and you are unsafe in situations where you should be completely safe. There is no one execution thing you need to learn that is more important to Axl's gameplan than this move. Just learn it. You should have that shit on demand, 100% of the time.

There's no way around it. You need to learn rensen FRC to play Axl. Stop being a baby and learn it.

Step 6: Get a feel for mid-range and how to put yourself there.

Axl operates optimally at mid-range. For all intents and purposes, I'm declaring mid-range to be from about 3 to about 5 character widths away, or, more usefully, from the absolute max range of your 5K to the max range of rensen FRC. Most characters have somewhere between 0 - 4 tools that work well in this range. Axl has about 20.

Axl's pressure at mid-range is amazing, because while a ton of his moves will connect, most characters don't have something fast enough to hit with in any gaps you may leave (or they might make by IBing). Axl has stronger mixup than most characters at mid-range, with a ton of lows and three overheads that will hit from that range, one of which is an ambiguous crossup, most of which can consistently confirm into damage given 25% meter. Rashousen feint is relatively safe at that range, and rashousen will still hit extremely quickly. You can do a string into rensen FRC a lot of ways from mid-range, especially with 2P chaining into 2S and 2H chaining into 2D now, and once they block a rensen FRC, your pressure is pretty much freestyle.

Additionally, Axl's tools are optimized for reacting from mid-range. If someone is trying to get in from mid-range, you have plenty of breathing room to react and punish with e.g. a 623P for fast approaches, a 2K to go under things, a f.S to stuff ground moves, or a 5P or 6K to punish jumps, or a rensen to punish backdashes, etc. You have faster moves and more options than almost every character at that range, so they have to either try to get in, get out, or hit you with a very limited option set. That gives you an advantage you don't have when the opponent is farther away or closer in.

Even better, your anti-air tools at mid-range will get you really good damage consistently. While you can get decent short confirms by hitting with a long-range anti-air attack, hitting at mid-range means that you get to confirm into whatever combo you want, including meterless knockdown or carry-to-corner bomber loop setups. Mid-range gives you optimal damage for your anti-air punishes. Even if your opponent happens to FD your anti-airs at mid-range, that means they've blown some meter to still be stuck in your pressure, because you can pull them to the ground by continuing to chain 6K and 2S, then mix up into rensen FRC, rashousen, raeisageki, or 6H.

My point is, you want to be at mid range pretty much all the time. If you're closer than that, you want to back up, and if you're farther away than that, you want to approach. Once you've gotten tracking your opponent and throwing out the correct punishes down, work on always being at mid-range. Learn ground strings that will keep you there no matter how they block, even if it means cancelling into that rensen FRC or rashousen on reaction to a green flash. Learn to approach or retreat in the air while covering yourself with j.S. Use backdash and running FD to keep yourself where you want to be. Learn to corral your opponent to mid-range if they block something, using the many movement options and pull/push tools available to you.

Axl is a mid-range-specialized character, and thrives at that distance. Get there, stay there, force your opponent to be there, and you will win more.

Step 7: Use unblockables and fear to confuse your opponent and make them jump.

Axl's pressure is pretty great now. As long as you have meter, you can keep folks in blockstun for a long-ass time, and you also have some real high-lows you can throw in, such as 2H-{2D/5D}. But your mixup is still pretty subpar. Ambiguous stuff like Kokuu or Raei crossup are slow, and your fastest grounded overhead is still 23 frames. Sure, if you're doing the mid-range thing properly, you can get a lot of false gap tricks working, but you don't have crazy unreactable millia stuff, so people who are patient can just wait you out and make you waste all your meter or get to a point where you have to stop attacking. And of course we all play fighting games here, so you know what that means. Gotta go for throws!

Axl's got a lot of cool tools for going for throws. j.P, 3P, 5K, and 2K are all good ticks, a blocked rensen FRC gives you enough time to run in and throw, and you've got an FRC on raeisageki that lets you land pretty fast and throw people too. Your option-select throws with S or sometimes 6P, K or 5H cover the jump-out option, and you have some interesting baiting tools, such as 2K and 623P to bait out throw-invincible reversals. It may be weird to think that Axl relies on throws because he's ostensibly trying to operate outside of throw range most of the time, but it is a pretty strong option in Guilty Gear in general, and you have the tools to utilize it.

Did I mention you've got a full screen fake command grab?

Rashousen ([4]6H) is an unblockable move that travels the full length of the screen fairly quickly. It's really annoying to deal with, but more importantly, it is a grab-like option that knocks down and puts them in mid-range automatically. Knockdown is great in GG. It also isn't beaten by jumping at the last second or being throw-invincible, and it will hit limbs, because it's not considered a throw. Because of this, one has to jump early to avoid it. It's really punishable on whiff, but it also has a free break that puts it in a shorter recovery animation and cancels the move. This is important, because this means Axl can fake a rashousen and get the opponent to jump. Jumping is exactly what Axl wants everyone to do, especially at mid-range. Rashousen is a very important tool for Axl, especially since they buffed its recovery and range in AC+R. There's a lot of weird mixup to learn as Axl, but rensen-rashousen-feint mixup is a staple of your gameplan, and, conveniently, something you should mainly be doing from mid-range.

How do you beat blocking well? Throws. How do you beat throws? Jumping. What does Axl want you to do? Jump. It's just science.

Step 8: Optimize your damage (Advanced combos).

Axl is a high-damage character, but you can play him as a low-damage character if you don't learn any non-basic combos. We have a combo thread and I and hopefully others will fill in specifics later, but some good stuff to practice:

- (Any launch that takes less than 7 hits), 5H-6H, 2S. This is new in +R and is how you get your non-situational big damage. It's a tough link, especially at certain distances, but you should learn it anyway.

- (Air combo into corner), Kokuugeki 6FRC6 Bomber, 2S. Bomber loops are harder this game, and you will have some trouble getting corner-carry combos to work compared to AC. This is one of the more reliable and damaging ways to connect with the bomber into the corner without putting them too high first.

- JI S Raeisageki (Hit FRC) Airdash ... j.H, whatever. If you're punishing or fishing with this move, you can confirm it into damage! All it requires is a 1F FRC! Only sometimes useful but pretty good to learn, as I don't know a better way to confirm a non-into-corner Raei hit into any real damage.

Also, you're going to want to learn to do character-specific combos, but we'll talk about that in the combo and matchup threads.

Anyway, hope this was helpful to all you hypothetical new Axl players out there. I'll try to periodically update this guide as I learn new stuff and/or realize some of the stuff I told you is actually bad.

NOW GO WIN TOURNAMENTS. I want to see Axl winning more stuff.

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