[CS2] Noel vs. Valkenhayn

[Sahgren]

Matchup Ranking: 6 - 4 in Valk's favor

Recommended Playstyle: Aggressive

Valk's forte is in his offense. Solid pressure combined with an amazingly powerful wolf mixup that's difficult to use Drive to ignore, letting the Valk player get the offense is the last thing you want to happen.

On the flip side, his old man life, low primers, and lack of a solid meterless reversal means that he's on the fragile side defensively. Ideally you'll want to get in and keep up pressure until he dies, giving him as little chance to strike back as possible.

General Strategy:

Valk out spaces you in human and out maneuvers you in wolf, so be careful while approaching. His pokes in human are slow to recover when whiffed, so take full advantage of that to get in close if they miss. When in wolf mode he can very quickly go from just out of your range to within his own attack range, so be careful and do your best to poke/AA him out when he attempts to come in.

Once in, do your best to keep up the pressure and change around when you stagger your pressure to prevent attempts at poking out. His 6A has guardpoint from frames 5 to 12, so you can be punished if you get overly predictable with your pressure, but it's a free 5C CH into a combo for you if it's blocked/misses. Just stay unpredictable enough, and you can keep Valk under pressure for a quite a while.

Don't try to block all of Valk's wolf mix up and pressure. Between the near invisible 50/50 high/low mix up and command grab, it's best if you take every opportunity to escape rather than attempt to wait it out. Try to jump away every chance you get and poke him out of wolf form and wolf cancels in order to force the Valk to respect your options, cut down on the mix up, and force them to make mistakes.

Your Best Tools(For This Matchup):

Up + Back + Barrier: When in wolf Valk doesn't really have a safe, consistent, way of forcing hits in on people in midair. It's ultimately considerably safer to try and escape wolf pressure/mix up as soon as you possibly can than trying to wait through the wolf 50/50 + c-grab.

2A/5A: Letting Valk run wild in wolf is one of the last things you want to let happen. Use various fast attacks with fast recovery like 5A and 2A to make the Valk respect that you can knock him out of wolf form and give yourself a bigger opening to escape.

6A: The majority of Valk's wolf form attacks put him in the air, so anti-airing him is a good way to deal with them. Necessary to deal with Valk's [h]j.C, as it can't be beaten ground-to-air without a true AA.

Has A DP?: No.

Has A DP With Heat?: Sturm Wolf (ground super) is invincible from frame 1, but is unsafe on block/whiff.

Things To Look Out For:

[h]5C: A long poke that covers half the screen. Has considerably more range than any of your own pokes, and its 6(!) active frames means it'll eat through attempts at using 5D as a method of approach.

[h]6C: Overhead that destroys a primer when blocked. Can be wolf canceled. When spaced well puts him out of poke range if blocked. It's +2 on block as well, so you won't have enough time to run up to punish afterwards even when blocked. The wolf cancel means he can get tricky and cancel into a low/c-grab, so stay on your toes and watch out for that. Fatal counter on counterhit.

[h]6B: Grants +8(!) on block and can be wolf canceled on the second hit. Allows Valk to safely reset pressure and threaten wolf mixup. Fatal counter on counterhit.

[h]236A/B/C: All three of these moves can be wolf canceled. 236A and 236C hit mid and are air unblockable, while 236B hits low. 236C destroys a primer. IB these and poke back in order to force the Valk to either stop wolf cancelling after them or start juking back, which will give you more time to escape.

[w]236D: Valk's wolf command grab. Does 1.5k damage and fully recharge's Valk's wolf meter on hit. It can catch you in midair if the Valk is willing to take the risk and provides a fairly good incentive for you to attempt to jump/poke out of wolf mix up/pressure. It leaves a rather large opening on whiff, so forcing a Valk to miss a c-grab gives you a good opening to escape or counter attack.

Notes: (Random ass notes I haven't gotten around to sorting yet)

If [h] is before notation it means Valk is in human form. Similarly, [w] means he's in wolf form.

IB > 6A covers every single one of Valk's wolf cancel options on a blocked 236A. Effectively prevents the Valk from attempting wolf cancels off of 236A.

3C low profiles under [h]5B, 5C, 6B, 6C, and 5A.

You can poke out of 2C > 6B with 2A if you IB the 2C. Or use drive for higher risk/higher reward.

Example Matches:

Arcknight(Noel) vs Sahgren(Valkenhayn) 1

Arcknight(Noel) vs Sahgren(Valkenhayn) 2

Edited September 20, 2011 by Sahgren

[LunaKage]

Good work so far.

[Toasty]

Be weary of using 3C meterless. While it does low profile under Valk's 5B/C, you will get punished for it if it's blocked (even at far range). If Valk punishes you for it, you will eat about 3-4k no matter how far away you are when he hits you.

[Arcknight]

After some interesting rounds with Sahgren today, I find I cannot punish Valk's 6C with anything and get counter-hit for my trouble. Is there any good place in Valk's pressure to launch a 2D offensive or a well times 5B? I had varying success with using 5D after wake-up but it was iffy due to connection(ahem) problems. Human or wolf form advice would be useful.

Edited September 2, 2011 by Arcknight

[LunaKage]

After some interesting rounds with Sahgren today, I find I cannot punish Valk's 6C with anything and get counter-hit for my trouble. Is there any good place in Valk's pressure to launch a 2D offensive or a well times 5B? I had varying success with using 5C after wake-up but it was iffy due to connection(ahem) problems. Human or wolf form advice would be useful.

Matchup sucks.

Valk can keep us well spaced, and a blocked 5C > 6C is solid enough to where we really can't do anything but block.

His normals hit us out of all of our drives with a high success rate

we can however 5D through his 236C

Wolf pressure, when done right, is too solid to poke out of, but has a big enough gap to where we can be CH if we push any buttons

his Wolf 5A, despite being a low attack, still beats out 2D

His wolf cannons can be 6A'd, but it's a huge risk since if we time it wrong(which ALWAYS happens) we get CH into a combo, or even if it isn't a CH, if we don't emergency tech(which NEVER HAPPENS) we get combo'd blue beat.

Approach is almost impossible on a good Valk, if you are lucky enough to get in, throw out a lot of staggered 2Bs, since they will beat his 6A, also if you suspect he will mash super, we can 2D right over it. Once you get him, don't let him out, you may not get a second chance.

You pretty much need to play as CS1 Noel in this match, either be lame and block like a champion, or get lucky and 5D through a stray 5B or 236C, either way, the matchup is a long uphill battle for Noel, my personal opinion 6/4 Valk's favor.

[Arcknight]

Thanks for that information Luna. It does seem like Valk is incredibly safe when pressuring Noel. He also has decent enough meter gain from his long combos that he can throw out a RC for more mix-up shenanigans. As for 5D through 236C is that doable on regular block or is that only doable after an Instant Block? I also meant 5D on wake-up. 5C was a typographical error.

[Sahgren]

Thanks for that information Luna. It does seem like Valk is incredibly safe when pressuring Noel. He also has decent enough meter gain from his long combos that he can throw out a RC for more mix-up shenanigans. As for 5D through 236C is that doable on regular block or is that only doable after an Instant Block? I also meant 5D on wake-up. 5C was a typographical error.

You can 5D through his 236C on normal block for most blockstrings. I'll have to test more to see if there are any that you can't; I'm pretty sure there aren't though.

Valk's normals > Noel's normals. By a lot. If the Valk is playing correctly, you really won't be given all that many chances to use your normals in neutral.

Don't get too used to 5D on wake-up. The invul doesn't start till frame 3, so if it's working it means that they're screwing up their meaty (like I tend to do).

You can "technically" 4D through his 6C. Technically, in that iif you don't do it as soon as possible the Valk will be able to block the 4D anyways.

Like Luna said, you basically have to play this one CS1 style. Block like a champ and lolinvul through stuff until the Valk gets frustrated/scared. You really don't have many options until the Valk is unwilling to hit buttons.

I'd personally put this at 6/4 in Valk's favor, since he overwhelms Noel in terms of neutral and offense. Only saving grace for Noel is that drive hurts like a bitch. I'd also like a second opinion on that before I throw it up top.

Edit: Reread Luna's post. Basically what he said.

[Arcknight]

After getting the "go ahead" from Sahgren, I am going to link a match he and I had some time ago(these are linked above as well) that pretty clearly demonstrates how this match can go. On defense, Noel suffers a lot. However, so does Valkenhayn in the opposite position. Winning the neutral game seems to be paramount in this match-up, since, for either character, defense=problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIC9tbs5BFQ

Edit: I will go ahead and post this video as well. Same players. It at least shows that you can 5D through some of his stuff if you feel you need to take the chance. Also a corner knockdown+22B spam will not connect. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2IYqHCHAbI

Edited September 20, 2011 by Arcknight