[P4AU] Ken Amada vs Minazuki

[VR-Raiden]

• Use this thread to discuss the Minazuki matchup.
• Please focus more heavily on discussing how to play the matchup properly as Ken rather than who is at advantage/disadvantage.
• This post will be updated as info arises.

Round Start:

• ...

Neutral:

• ...

Offense:

• ...

Defense:

• ...

Punishes:

On Block:

• DP Punish: 2A+B, 2B (or anything really).  If Minazuki has meter he can cancel into wings of purgatory super so be careful.

On Reaction:

• To 236C/D Teleport: CH B+D (Doesn't work for SB version)

Character Specific Notes:

Combos:

• CH B+D > 2A+B fails midscreen, use dash 2B(1) instead.

Mixups:

• ...

[Justice7541]

So how are people dealing with Minazuki's teleport as Ken?  It seems his 2B's invul doesn't start up fast enough (or maybe it was netplay) to stuff the teleport and DP seems to whiff randomly.  Jump throw doesn't seem to work either, I almost lost to random scrub Minazuki #47 on ranked because he would just randomly spam teleport every two seconds and I couldn't figure out how to deal with it.

[A.X.I.S.]

2B beats teleport.

[Justice7541]

Seems like you gotta do it hella early though?  Unlike most other characters where you can wait until he's basically right on top of you before pressing 2B.

[mixedmethods]

You can DP on reaction or meet him air-to-air with j.A. I prefer the latter, since it's safer. Just be wary of SB Teleport: he retains air actions, so if you hear the SB sound, stay cautious; his j.A is big and his j.B is nasty.

Watch out for Teleport > Wings of Purgatory if he has meter and wants you the hell away from him. It'll body Koromaru and, well, Ken.

And for the love of Katana Jesus, don't trip his counter move with Koromaru. Just wait for the punish window (it's small but it does exist). If you have Koro near him, you can tag him with Koromaru when he leaves his catch frames or even try for a Fire Breath punish (need to test). He probably won't use it unless you've committed Koro to 236C/D to cover your approach, in which case you can try to DP out before the counter (haven't had much luck with this in testing) or try to get Ultimate Cross to invuln through the unblockable.

[VR-Raiden]

On teleports, it seems to me the most realistic thing to do on reaction is DP. Unfortunately if he does SB teleport he can block. It seems hard, but you might be able to tell whether he SB or not to decide whether or not to DP. Helps to look at his meter at the same time and listen for the sound.

 

2B works, but you have to do it early. Have to react to him disappearing on ground, not reappearing. Same with j.A, back jump j.A will CH the C, D, and make him block with SB. 

 

If you're in awakening, 214214A/236236A will come out as whichever reversal super and punish either C or D teleport which is nice, also bad if he SB teleport though.

 

Tried roll, but he can punish it pretty easily it seems. 5C~roll kinda worked to leave you plus, but half the time Koromaru just got hit.

 

There's also Gold Burst, but that's only if you want to use that resource. It'll leave you +2 on block if he did SB teleport.

[Justice7541]

So I've been playing this matchup a bit more and it's actually pretty easy.  To be fair the average Minazuki player on netplay is not very good but I still wouldn't say this matchup is in his favor.

 

1) He has above-average normals but Ken's are better in general.  All his good pokes are also REALLY unsafe on whiff (almost as bad as Ken's but without the option of Koro cover) so its very easy to bait him into trying to take out Koro and then CH punishing him with 5B or 236X for huge damage.

 

2) He has like no mixup.  His command throw is going to be your biggest concern but it deals relatively low damage.  I believe he can OMC it into moderate damage (<3k) in the corner but in general Minazuki lacks mixup options unless he gets you mashing and scores a counterhit.  Meanwhile Ken hits like a truck off pretty everything (even just a CH DP) so the risk/reward is pretty heavily weighted in your favor.

 

3) Minazuki's teleport is sort of a problem but DP is actually a pretty good counter to it, as is most of the other stuff mentioned above.  SB teleport can bait it but given the damage + oki you will get off any successful AA CH with Ken the guessing game isn't actually as favorable for Minazuki as I originally expected it to be.

 

4) You can pretty much spam heal for free vs. Minazuki and he can't do anything about it.  Sending Koro in with 2C/5C then pressing 214A/B almost always works in my experience.  Either he wastes time stuffing Koro (and you heal it back up), he tries to teleport preemptively and gets stuffed by Koro, or he blocks and you get that heal out free.  His sword wave super might be a problem if calls out your heal in advance but I've recovered and blocked it plenty of times too so it seems like he's got to call it out pretty early if he wants to punish.

[mixedmethods]

So I've been playing this matchup a bit more and it's actually pretty easy. To be fair the average Minazuki player on netplay is not very good but I still wouldn't say this matchup is in his favor.

1) He has above-average normals but Ken's are better in general. All his good pokes are also REALLY unsafe on whiff (almost as bad as Ken's but without the option of Koro cover) so its very easy to bait him into trying to take out Koro and then CH punishing him with 5B or 236X for huge damage.

His 5A recovers a hell of a lot faster than your 5B. As do his 2A, 5B, 2B... his j.A and j.B beat yours... yes, you can whiff punish him for standing there hitting 5A, but no good Minazuki is going to do that. That hitbox is huge and leads into massive damage, so you're going to be dancing around it.

Hitting Koro gives him all of his cancel options, so remember that he retains his jump cancels on his two-hit B moves if he hits Koromaru, giving him safe ways to disable Koro-spam.

2) He has like no mixup. His command throw is going to be your biggest concern but it deals relatively low damage. I believe he can OMC it into moderate damage (<3k) in the corner but in general Minazuki lacks mixup options unless he gets you mashing and scores a counterhit. Meanwhile Ken hits like a truck off pretty everything (even just a CH DP) so the risk/reward is pretty heavily weighted in your favor.

When was it decided that Minazuki has no mix-up? Because he absolutely has mix-up -- in fact, he has insanely good mix-up. First, he can vary the tempo by jump-canceling his B moves after one hit, and teleport, command throw, and tick throw can all catch you off guard for anticipating one over the other. His high-low game is limited (so is ours) but he excels at frame traps (so do we). If he's doing a blockstring, you have to hold that, even if it seems endless, and once he's pressuring you, one bad guess is going to hurt. If he has 50 meter, he can do SB knives + SB teleport to make himself unpunishable, or go for a grab + OMC, or, once he gets a hit, end the combo with Purgatory for huge damage.

Guard Cancel Assault is your friend. Don't autopilot your defence or you'll pay for it. If he's the one auto-piloting, then, yes, you can call out teleport, but he really has no reason to be afraid of you while you're defending. You're not poking out. His frame traps are nasty.

[Justice7541]

His 5A recovers a hell of a lot faster than your 5B. As do his 2A, 5B, 2B... his j.A and j.B beat yours... yes, you can whiff punish him for standing there hitting 5A, but no good Minazuki is going to do that. That hitbox is huge and leads into massive damage, so you're going to be dancing around it.

Hitting Koro gives him all of his cancel options, so remember that he retains his jump cancels on his two-hit B moves if he hits Koromaru, giving him safe ways to disable Koro-spam.

When was it decided that Minazuki has no mix-up? Because he absolutely has mix-up -- in fact, he has insanely good mix-up. First, he can vary the tempo by jump-canceling his B moves after one hit, and teleport, command throw, and tick throw can all catch you off guard for anticipating one over the other. His high-low game is limited (so is ours) but he excels at frame traps (so do we). If he's doing a blockstring, you have to hold that, even if it seems endless, and once he's pressuring you, one bad guess is going to hurt. If he has 50 meter, he can do SB knives + SB teleport to make himself unpunishable, or go for a grab + OMC, or, once he gets a hit, end the combo with Purgatory for huge damage.

Guard Cancel Assault is your friend. Don't autopilot your defence or you'll pay for it. If he's the one auto-piloting, then, yes, you can call out teleport, but he really has no reason to be afraid of you while you're defending. You're not poking out. His frame traps are nasty.

 

He has frametrap but he doesn't really have mixup in the sense of opening you up.  The longer you block the better it gets for you because he is expending meter and other resources keeping that pressure going while you're just taking it easy regenerating Koro gauge.  He does have his command throw but the range isn't that long, it's not Assimilation by any means.  If he does start trying to set you up for it you can very easily call it and fatal punish it for free huge damage.  "No" mixup might be a bit of an exaggeration but his mixup game definitely isn't very good, and it's extremely risky to do whenever you do decide to go for it, which is not really an advantageous situation to be in when it's "your turn" versus a character whose turn never ends once it starts.  At the very least, if you're playing vs. Minazuki, you absolutely should be blocking his mixup because he's really got nothing insanely strong that is capable of bypassing your defense if you just block well.  He's not Aigis, at any rate.

 

Minazuki's normals are also absolute ass on whiff so you should be taking advantage of that.  He may recover faster on paper but he doesn't have a puppet cover his move recoveries for him so...  His one good normal is 2B which has a pretty ridiculous AA hitbox, but so long as you prevent him from autopiloting into it (Koro 5C is a good choice for that) there isn't much he can actually challenge you with.  Ken's normals are really, really really really really REALLY good.

[Zephyrion22]

He has frametrap but he doesn't really have mixup in the sense of opening you up.  The longer you block the better it gets for you because he is expending meter and other resources keeping that pressure going while you're just taking it easy regenerating Koro gauge.  He does have his command throw but the range isn't that long, it's not Assimilation by any means.  If he does start trying to set you up for it you can very easily call it and fatal punish it for free huge damage.  "No" mixup might be a bit of an exaggeration but his mixup game definitely isn't very good, and it's extremely risky to do whenever you do decide to go for it, which is not really an advantageous situation to be in when it's "your turn" versus a character whose turn never ends once it starts.  At the very least, if you're playing vs. Minazuki, you absolutely should be blocking his mixup because he's really got nothing insanely strong that is capable of bypassing your defense if you just block well.  He's not Aigis, at any rate.

 

Minazuki's normals are also absolute ass on whiff so you should be taking advantage of that.  He may recover faster on paper but he doesn't have a puppet cover his move recoveries for him so...  His one good normal is 2B which has a pretty ridiculous AA hitbox, but so long as you prevent him from autopiloting into it (Koro 5C is a good choice for that) there isn't much he can actually challenge you with.  Ken's normals are really, really really really really REALLY good.

 

I agree with you on most of the points. However, even if he deals less damage with his command throw than with his normal starters, it's still decent. he also gets really good damage from his ground throw (don't overlook it, his never-ending pressure and command grab can make you forget to tech, and you'll regret it). his jump cancels options are relatively good. He has neat mixup options from it (air turn backdash jB either hits you crouching or completely whiff depending on height and you can't really differentiate them, jB(1) whiff (2) hits that prevents both jumping out and successfully resets your pressure if you block it. you can also make it whiff to set grabs.Yes, his mixups are risky and not incredible, but they are there, and it's hard to tell when they are coming out and call them out properly.  Big issue is that you don't see Minazuki players commit to those options cause "hey why take the risks ?", but should you be able to guard anything and stuff the grabs, he still has plenty of ways to ruin you in the corner.

 

Also if the ground game is highly in our favours, the air game is definitely in his. Minazuki's air normals beat all of ours with the right spacing, as they have great range to force us relying more on jB, but are also faster, meaning he can always beat jB just by calling it. his damage on jB counter is also hilarious if he has the meter to spare, so it's definitely a good deterrent. Even if he blocks your jB in the air, he often still has better air options than us to prevent us from pressing our advantage.

 

Overall, I just think that this MU is actually quite balanced. Minazuki has some annoying tools (air normals, his teleport which can serve as an anti AA against Ken because of the slow ass recovery of his jB and his bad DP, or as a safe get-in tool with the right setups) and Ken has to deal with them. but Ken's tools also force Minazuki out of his ground game. Both have insane damage output : Ken's is just more stable than Minazuki's but at the end of the day, it's roughly the same. They both build their game around forcing the opponent to make a mistake or take a wrong guess. (they both excel at frame traps and whiff punishing). It's a MU that will test your patience and endurance as a player, as both characters can heavily shift the momentum in their favour in an instant !

[Justice7541]

And for the love of Katana Jesus, don't trip his counter move with Koromaru. Just wait for the punish window (it's small but it does exist). If you have Koro near him, you can tag him with Koromaru when he leaves his catch frames or even try for a Fire Breath punish (need to test). He probably won't use it unless you've committed Koro to 236C/D to cover your approach, in which case you can try to DP out before the counter (haven't had much luck with this in testing) or try to get Ultimate Cross to invuln through the unblockable.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHMVGGJi4Nk

 

So that doesn't work lol.  Worth a shot though.