Digital Watches

I swear, people are so unwilling to just block for a second. I don't buy all these matchup descriptions where "If they get close you get destroyed." Very true of some characters, like Millia or Elph, but sometimes it's okay to have to block. Most characters have to block sometimes, and you can utilize IB, FD, and throw to get out of many characters' pressure, not to mention that having a DP, a fast low-profile normal, and a 4F counter are all pretty nice. Axl mainly suffers when tick throws come out, but even that's pretty manageable in most matchups.

Add to pros: Lots of options for cutting off Axl's air approach. Between beak driver, bull bash, 6P, and elk YRC, Axl has a lot of trouble approaching this way. Also, does "You can beat sparrowhawk" count as a matchup pro when it's true of literally every character? I swear I have no idea why anyone uses that move except in combos.

Honestly Axl has a ton of good matchups and a few bad ones in Xrd 1.1. I'd list I-No, Pot, Leo, Bedman, Sol, Ram, Faust, Slayer, and Zato as all having significant trouble with Axl to varying degrees (In roughly that order by how bad it is, I-No being the worst), either because they can't zone him out (Ram, Bedman, Faust, Pot, Zato), or because they simply can't approach him in a safe manner (Zato, I-No, Sol, Slayer, Pot, Leo). Slayer actually has a decent way of getting in with dash YRC and a decent way of getting out with BDC bite or BDC jump, but he still gets bullied. I say Zato struggles because it's true, but obviously if you give Zato an inch he'll take a mile so I'm not willing to say it's better than even for sure. Axl still really struggles against Venom, Chipp, and Millia mostly because they can keep him locked out of most of the guesses he's usually trying to make (Millia because roll and pin and multiple airdashes, Chipp because teleports and the 3F jab doesn't hurt, and Venom because a lot of your normals get tagged by balls, obviously). Elphelt I think would actually be in his favor if not for one fairly big issue: Shotgun in the corner. Axl's lack of a 5F normal means that he's especially vulnerable to tick throws, and Elph has an unthrowable command grab and options to cover you trying to jump out, which means that you're either going to guess right with a DP or a jump, or take one million damage for trying. Still, it's way more doable than his other bad matchups because at least you win the neutral pretty convincingly if you know what you're doing (Grenades are really easy to deal with if they're not already on top of you. Her best bet is to use them to cover the space she wants to be in, and even then you can just straight up neutralize it with rensengeki once it's on the ground). I think this matchup falls around 5.5-4.5 in Elph's favor. Very manageable I'd call everything I haven't mentioned even or as near as makes no difference. Ky v Axl is among the more turtley matchups in this game on both sides, Sin beats you on damage but loses on momentum, and May is just a callout game. Axl's really strong this game.

Venom is one of many characters in Xrd who isn't going to be jumping in with many things you can low-profile. In general they've made that a lot weaker as, for example, all the new characters have mostly ground-touching air normals, but Venom has always been bad: jH, jS, and jK will touch the ground, and jK is 12 active frames, so he doesn't even have to throw it late to snag you. I actually like engaging venom from closer than most characters, outside of his P range but inside K. Your primary non-risky mixups are going to be frame traps and tick throws, and his main breakout is DAA, which I believe you can low-profile, but you definitely can counter or safe jump. The 3P, 2K, and 5K ticks are pretty effective, and I like 2H-6H YRC (j.K/throw) a lot in this matchup, because he can't beat the 50/50 without guessing right. To get in, you're often going to be relying on either tagging a ball set with 5P, j.S, or 2H, or throwing a rensen, but I've found that this is one of the matchups I really want thundershadow YRC in for taking advantage of openings that won't get me a rensen (Some teleports, high ball sets). Also, consider engaging Venom air-to-air when you can. Your j.K and j.6P are both really great for messing with what Venom is trying to do a lot of the time: Toss a downward-diagonal ball at you so you can't contest his jump-ins with your AA chains.

An example input I used a lot in AC/+R is c.S-8H (The 8 gives you the jump install, since c.S is JCable, but you cancel into 5H before you leave the ground). So you could do 5K-c.S-82H-6H (YRC) Airdash, for example.

Any air normal besides j.D can be used as a safe jump-in. I suggest j.K or j.H when up close and j.S if you need to reach pretty far.

Hitstop or hitpause is just the amount of time both characters are frozen as soon as the attack hits. Hitstun or untech time (Since it's an aerial hit) is the term you're looking for, Hitstop should never affect a combo unless projectiles are involved. Anyway, I have some decent oki theory in this game already, especially at 25% meter. I think rensen KD and YRC are very big tools that will change neutral and conversion games significantly, so I'm guessing Axl will rise, especially given other characters' changes.

Nah, I wouldn't say that other characters gaining range, even if true, has had a significant effect on Axl's tier placing. What he lost from +R was the ability to keep pressure on and the ability to cover multiple options. For one thing, Kokuugeki was an extremely strong move and is completely gone. And there's a reason they gave him 2H-2D in +R: Without it, his baseline mixup game is kind of lacking. But honestly all of that is overcomable, and Axl got a few really nice tools this version in the form of YRCs and dragonpunch. The real problem I'd chalk up his tier placing to is lack of consistent meterless knockdown. It's always been true that most characters in this game have some kind of option that overpowers things Axl can do in <5 frames, so your game is to put yourself in positions Axl wins. The problem is, now the reward for doing that is like, a little damage and a reset to neutral in a huge number of situations unless you have 50% meter. The character worked because you got knockdown off those situations before, and could start your oki from effectively any range. Counterhit grounded 5P from fullscreen? Your confirm is Rensen. Call out a projectile and beat it? Rensen. Midscreen confirm? Rensen. Stopped a grounded approach? Probably Rensen. I think that knocking down again is going to be important. If they'd give us KD on the dragonpunch too, that'd be great.

Probably still venom. Could be Ky. Definitely one of those.

Ooh, that's good to know, I need to look for IB into counter in more situations.

Axl Oki: Safe jumps are your safest oki option: They only lose to blitz shield, and you can vary them to get mixup -j.H is probably your most damaging true safe jump and the most bang for your buck for just putting them in blockstun if they're going to block it correctly. -j.P is a later safejump, or, if you know you can do it a bit earlier, can go into a second overhead (j.K, j.6P, or another j.P) before landing. -j.S is a good safejump from far away, and additionally can be made meaty enough such that only the second hit connects, pulling them into the corner on block and setting up for a potential crossup with 63214S (If you're sure they're not expecting it. The startup is long enough that you can't risk too much). -j.K is JCable and also a pretty nasty counterhit if you do it early and they jump into you. It's also a little better effective forward range than j.H, so you can do it from outside of the opponent's throw range more easily, which is important once you're doing mixup. -j.D is risky, because of landing recovery, but will net you more meterless damage if it hits. Against certain characters with slower reversals it can still be made to work as a safejump The most basic mixup you can do from these is to vary the timing or spacing to whiff the attack (or just not attack on your way down), then go for a low, usually 2K. Once they're afraid of the low, you can start doing things like late airdash to call out an attempted throw (Which will usually net you more damage than a safe jump if it hits, since you can go into j.D more easily). 2K is also a great tick throw if they block it. As mentioned, you can go for a tick throw from a lot of these setups (j.P is the easiest, but with microdashes you can tickthrow from any of them pretty effectively), and once they're afraid of the throw, you can start tossing in frametraps, such as a late 5K or f.S from out of throw range. A particularly damaging one if you know they're looking for the throw is 6H, so that once they're expecting the throw, they end up swinging their OS against 6H from frame disadvantage and get counterhit, but this won't work against characters with fast enough OSes, such as goddamn Sol. If you're facing a character with not enough meter to blitz and no real reversal, you can go for oki like meaty 63214S or 6H, which can end up being more rewarding or at least lead to pressure they aren't used to dealing with. Against characters without reversals, it's pretty safe to go for 2K as oki (And in the case of Ky, you get to go under his DP if you time your meaty correctly), which gives you another opener besides safejump. Bomber loops: First of all, don't worry too much about loops, just get your confirms into TKB down. -Learn to confirm a TKB from throw (For most characters, 6K-2S-TKB. For some characters you have to do the TKB late to get the knockdown. For some characters you have to do 2S late to connect. I think at least one character it's easier to do run 5P-6K-2S-TKB. Practice against the cast.) -Learn to confirm a TKB from DP RC. A typical combo is run 6K-2S-TKB. Then see if you can get a second rep with 5P-6K-2S-TKB -Learn to confirm from all your jump-cancellable normals as anti-airs (Against a jumping dummy). For reference, these are 6K, 2S, c.S, and 6P. Then, see if you can get corner throw into 3 reps on a bunch of characters. The most common 3-rep variation that works is throw, (c.S-2S-TKB) x 2, 5K-2S-TKB Once you have all that down, just practice recognizing situations where you can confirm a juggle into some variation of this. Always go for TKB knockdown whenever you can, it's the best positioning you can get off of most combos. I wouldn't bother practicing stuff that involves air string into bomber: You'll only ever get KD off that on a few heavies at low hit counts and if you RC it and do another rep.

It's the crossup, but that might become throw-invuln in the patch. Still, you can blitz there, and I think most characters can jab if they IB (But not Axl. No jab.)

This matchup is just gonna be hard until we get some real knockdown options, but you do have the tools to stop Leo's approach. You're mostly going to want to focus on stopping his ground approach. Leo doesn't have a lot of low crush moves, and his ability to get in via airdashing is fairly limited. As such, your approach is kind of comparable to how Axl v. Order Sol went in previous games: A lot of 3P and 2H to keep him out, and be prepared to toss a 5P or DP if he tries to jump. You want to stay out of Leo's effective range, because you don't really have anything fast enough to contest his pressure, and DPing can be risky with that counter available to him. However, because of his low jump and long normals, you may not be able to tag him with melody chain quick enough after he jumps a rensen, so it's a slightly weaker option than in some matchups, unless of course he's trying to throw fireballs at you (Rensen will beat either fireball, just do it) So yeah, basically play a strong neutral game and keep him from getting close to you. That's really all you can do.

The main thing I'd say to ignore about that guide is the bit about Rashousen. To do a rashousen feint mixup in Xrd, you need 25% meter for the cancel, and frankly, it's so slow and short-range now that I doubt many good players are going to be scared enough to not punish a rashousen that often. Also, your meterless KD opportunities are much fewer and farther between until the patch hits and we get KD on rensen back. And uh, you're a little better at zoning because of 7F 5P, and a little better at getting out of pressure because DP. Other than that, I'd say a lot of the stuff in that guide still holds.

6K does what it always does: Covers that space and gatlings into 6H. It's not terrible but it's an option you're going to have to YRC if you're wrong, because he's going to knock you down for it. Also, jump P and jump H will both sometimes beat it clean if he's got the spacing right. 2H is a good tool overall, but kind of bad in this matchup. Sol can get past it with Riot Stomp, GF YRC, Bandit Bringer, rising P airdash, and I'm sure some other stuff, and just straight up punish you for KD. It's okay in some respects because it can zone out H DP, but it's a pretty hard read for what's usually going to be a clash, and 3P is just way better at the same job if it's the S DP. You need to play your zoning tight in this matchup, and 2H is a big slow option, the kind that Sol likes you to do a lot.