[CS2] Hazama vs. Rachel

[Dusty]

Matchup Ranking: 5.5-4.5 Hazama's favor

Recommended Playstyle:
Offensive, don't stay still, fly around alot

Basic/Matchup overview:
Fly around her zoning tools, you can punish lobelia if she throws one while you're a little farther than half screen away from her. Abuse your movement and watch out for pumpkin. You want to be in her face in this match up.

long-distance: Throw chains at long distance to pressure her and stop her from summoning stuff. If Rachel does summon and take advantage and get into her face. Be careful as WIND WILL TOTALLY MESS WITH YOUR MOVEMENT.

mid range: Rachel's pokes are pretty decent, 3C and 2B are the normals to use in neutral. Try to make her come to you and force her to get hit by a chain. If Rachel tries to come down on you with J.2C 214D~B her.I don't like mid range with Rachel very much.

short range: This is where Hazama shines in this match up. Stay on her and keep the pressure on. Rachel doesn't have a good way of breaking out of pressure as her normals are slow and she has no reversal super. If you think they're mashing catchair use jump cancelable moves and bait it. GO IN and abuse your big damage.

Best tools: Chain movement to fly around her zoning.


Things To Look Out For:
Jumping in or chaining in is suicide, as Rachel's 6A (Cat punch) if a really good anti air, and it goes behind her.

NEUTRAL TECH WIND!: Omg this crap gives me a headache. If you knock Rachel down and she does neutral tech wind, well shit there's not much you can do about it, sometimes she can wind into you and CH your wiffed move if you meaty poorly. If Rachel winds away from you can chase her to keep pressure but she will be able to block as it is nonpunishable and you have to call it out to give chase.

J.A instant overhead: Watch out from J.A instant overhead, as it leads into knock down and pressure into the same set up (totally not broken). I guess if you're baller you could react to 4 frame jump start up every time (lol stay godlike A.X.I.S). To get out you pretty much have to guess. Also remember that she needs 2 wind to perform it.

[Shazam]

Okay, well I'll just say right now that I don't have a ton of experience here but i'll throw a few general things out there.

If you're fighting a Rachel that keeps turtling and using her wind to stay in the air and go from wall to wall you're going to get tired of chasing her really quick. It's almost like how other people get annoyed at us running around shooting chains all day, but for the most part your zoning is better than hers and if you wait for an opening you can get in while she's up high with a nice j9d. Maybe something like 2dd or 6dd j9d and then either hitconfirm or just fall back down with an a cancel. If you wait a second to try to pull yourself in this might be a good time to try a surprise air grab. However I find that instead of being overly aggressive and trying to fly in with lobelias all over and the pumpkin out you can make the vampire come to you. Obviously she can't get any good damage without getting in, and now you've successfully trolled back. You can just post up shooting air drives and 4/5/6d because otherwise it can seem like you're trying to chase a Tao. If she starts to get the picture and finds out that it's time to try get more in your face....

There are certainly a lot of aggressive Rachel options and any good Rachel is going to know how to rush you down. Stay on the offensive like Dusty says. 214d~b against j2c is gdlk. Be careful of her windy 3c, it always catches people at the end of the animation in CS2. Cat chair is usually pretty easy to bait, and if you get a read on them and feel like they're about to throw it out either command grab or just grab. I hadn't thought of the jump cancel into barrier but I fight cat-spammy Rachels so I just go in, post up for a second with block and get my free 3c counter hit. It's pretty easy to gauge how much one Rachel will use the cat reversal so you can be sparing when you're finally in and trying to approach. Respect it and know that she has the option and it can do ridiculous damage now (only off an air confirm I think...) Definitely like the jump cancelleable moves here though. Be careful about flying in on grounded Rachels from the air because of her anti air options. Bait them out and block or try to make them throw it out early for a free chain counter hit.

If you instant block George for his 8 hits that's 24 meter. IB her 3c as well and if possible lobelias/sword iris. I don't think i've seen any yet but if we can have some Arcana Heart top of the screen air grabs going on in this matchup that would be awesome especially being able to follow up with a combo from that distance lol.

[Herbal Grey]

this thread'll probably be archived soon, but just to put it out there: instant overhead j.a doesn't work on hazama. rachel has to delay it to get it to hit properly (this is the same in extend)