Herbal Grey

ok, sorry, i should have said 9... i always jump forward anyway. but yea, i can't get it to work (and 5b 9 2d j.a is what i've been doing)

well, by JC i meant jump-cancel ( 9 )

i could SWEAR it doesnt work on hazama -_- i can perform 5a j.a (which i'd never tried before) on plat and rachel (5b j.a is a no-go), but that doesnt seem to work on hazama. how are you doing it? technically, my input is 5a JC 2d j.a ... is this incorrect?

yeah, that's why i said i should have jumped after j.b but it's still so much sad face. tager having spark bolt option consists of me floating backwards and tager slowly creeping closer until i jump and wind myself to the other side of the stage lol. if he's doing anything besides walking at you, it's punishable. (the combination of needing a stick and peer pressure has caused me to shell out the money and get my own stick too. yay for learning rachel combos again. kirbster, you can commiserate with me) @ polka....i'm pretty sure ioh j.a whiffs those characters (minus lambda) and you have to delay it. if not, i'm performing ioh j.a incorrectly and would greatly appreciate advice

i don't think it's really hitconfirming at that level really, you just have to decide beforehand...either you think he'll block the j.b or you think he won't. it's really a guessing game. the neutral game is really the meaty part because if you can pressure rachel into the corner, there are a LOT of things that rachel can do once she's locked down her prey, and no amount of blocking, even low crouching characters, will save them from a few hits or combos, whether it's simply extended mixup, fork staggering, or tricksy 1d crossups. this is where especially the mirror determines the winner. who can capitalize and work the other rachel into the corner.

@ggj.... lol @spa... this doesn't make sense, he's blocking your delayed j.a but not your delayed j.b? that's just random chance. he's not consciously thinking, i'm gonna not block this j.b because it's a fuzzy guard. if he's not blocking your j.b you can follow with 5b.

zong didnt go bc he had a date.... lumin's good decent company lol. what's dumb about "placing" in tourneys though is that the person who got second shinATproof is someone whom i destroyed later in teams (haku). the 4th place was a tager whom i can beat 15 games in a row (balonios, mr ib 720 my ioh grr) i feel like matchups in this game are so skewed it's not funny (coughhhh matchup chart so dumbb)...it just happened that i got xie in the first round and then another one of my 3 least favorite matchups (litchi) and don's good. i'm also free to severin thank god i didn't play him...until teams i also beat the 5th, 6th, and 7th place ppl in casuals, it just happened that i got don -_-

i lost four times this weekend in casuals / west toast tourney...these were the characters i lost to: platinum (xie), litchi (donavan), hazama (guymam), and lambda (severin)......is it a coincidence that these are three characters against whom rachel can't do the instant overhead plus the best player at lambda? i think not -_- ... instant overhead is very important ... but my neutral game also needs work. i was so sad when i ran out of wind and was getting zoned by platinum...stupid bombs being directable now also! i was SOOO sad when a tager (balonios) ib'd my instant overhead j.a j.b then 720'd me TT__TT i shoulda done a jump after the j.b but STILL.

honestly, i don't notice thaaaat much of a difference in how far barrier pushes you in extend. however, i generally never try to go for more than one iteration of 5b 2b (like no 5b 2b 5b 2b). against the majority of the cast, i generally just 2a 5b then i have a 50 50 chance of hitting with either ioh j.a or 2b. if it's blocked, i tend to jump away after 5b (or 6b in cs2), end with the typical a lobelia after 6b, or if they're mashing or trying to jump i fuzzy guard with winded 3c after 6b just to keep them honest with their blocking (a 3c starter is also pretty nice if you catch them). if you 2a then 5b, you're still guaranteed a 50 50 chance with the instant overhead bc barier guard won't push you too far away, so i would generally say if your 2b is blocked once, find a way to reset pressure or go back to zoning also, honestly, JC fork really only makes an impact against tager, because now rachel can't poke and jump away...being able to follow fork with winded 3c should still keep people guessing and not impact your pressure toooo badly. against players that are getting too complacent with their blocking, i can even summon pumpkin and reset if i choose, but i generally try to stay away from situations where they're blocking my fork, even in cs2.

:D :D :D :D :D :D time? address?

are people bb casual-ing at ffa tonight or should i see y'all tomorrow?

hm. i sorta use 3d jump but usually only when they're in the corner...like i know whatever character wants to dp/reversal in the corner but i'll stand super far away from them just with a pumpkin hanging right next to them...then i 3d, the pumpkin hits them putting them in guardstun then i usually j.b. it's similar to what matsu does, except he uses just a regular 2d. i also sometimes use 3d jump to start a match against chars like rachel if i think they want to start with lobelia. however, a lot of these types of situations i've found less costly ways of doing the same thing...for example, i could use 3d hop over lobelia, but a well placed jump => pumpkin summon can punish a lobelia while also providing an option select for if they don't do a lobelia (say, backdash or crouch block)...and now, i haven't used a wind and i've gained a summon for essentially the same effect... 5d backdash seems risky, but i do winded tech backdash against ppl that like to use 5a/2a against me in the corner, and it's really good against rachel because they're expecting you to grab or cat chair, so they typically will grab or 2a, which whiff the backdash hehehehe then i slap them 5a into 3k plus. i think i use less wind for movement because i'm attached to my combos, and not having wind for combos against, say, litchi, ragna, or any character that 3c doesn't chain into 236b really hurts my game because i don't like the 3c frog ender for my play-style

hmmmm, wow that would make me salty if i failed to punish. wouldn't an a-lobelia catch them before they could j.4d out? and that's really only if you don't have the right spacing for 5b because 5b owns noel everywhere (she can't d, the spacing is too far for 6a, and they can't use 3c). the reason a-lobelia comes to my mind is that it's also a counter-assault bait. scrubby noels be mashing that counter assault to 2d omg so much salt any time that happens and works. what was j.4d getting around that you were doing? @spa: maybe i should do that more...the only wind assisted movement i do is for escaping corner, escaping tager, escaping curse, escaping ragna

LOL and this happens, obviously, because noel was meant to be hated. winded 6cd against 4d/5d mash should do the trick though..hello corner and win with a-lobelia spam becuase they're mashin ^_^

sigh...i played on stick once recently for marvel, and i could actually do my "advanced" combos (as in not m m h s jump m m h s), which surprised me, but the combos in that game are so much easier than say, lvl2 j.2c and FC combos. even trying to wrap my head around using like a ring finger for c, then thumb d then ring finger again for j.2c combos is ... daunting. IF i got a stick, it sounds like hori is the most common? i think the regular model is the real arcade pro v3?

i would much rather do a rachel mirror than go against several other characters in the cast. every tool that rachel has is beatable, and if a rachel plays scrubby, it's really easy to take advantage of them. many of my most exciting matches have been rachel mirrors @kuro: maybe i should get a stick anyway bc i'm thinking of trying to learn marvel so i have something to do in the main tourney if i go to evo (and i dont have xbox)

if i actually HAD a stick sounds like one month might be doable with lots of practice ..... so many tears....oh well, not like i had/have a team anyway...def dont have $100/$150 to burn on one edit: or do i?

in other news, bb revolution qualifier is like 30 miles away from me, but i don't use stick TTTT___TTTT....so many tears. it's not an easy transition is it ?

oh noooooooo please keep your 5a far away from me. rock paper scissors so scary edit: and oh, ****....xie is probs still in japan super high level play mode too

you wont eat collider if you're not magnetized at full screen, or really half screen for that matter bc u can lobelia (higeking tries to throw out random atomic colliders all the time, lol...not safe). however, yes it can affect your flight pattern which is why most of the time, i just let tager hit me with spark bolt anyway, because like i said, there's not a lot he can do at full screen with rachel magnetized. as soon as i'm hit with spark bolt, summon pumpkin and tager's still free, and if you survive even one magnetism (at FULL screen), if you hadn't already built 50 heat by the first magnetism you will have done it by the second and subsequent one, if tager survives that long. edit: i'm not saying that rachel never makes a mistake and the matchup is always a perfect. butttt, the odds of tager "guessing" correctly are not nearly as high as say, rachel dashes in with pumpkin, gets either the 2b or ioh j.a to hit and rapes tager in the corner until he's nearly dead or dead, then turtles with 100 heat the rest of the round. which makes ME feel like this can't be 6-4, but i haven't played brice or coopa

ah, yeah, that's what high level tagers say...just play as lame as possible and you will win. but really, i don't get magnetized because the only time i'm ever close to tager is for a 6b jump away or if i have pumpkin out then winded dash 2a 5b then it's a 50 50 chance between 2b and IOH j.a. if i hit them, it's corner game and the round for me most of the time. if they block i jump away and still have two winds to spare for more boring neutral play..

how are you getting magnetized besides a full screen blocked spark bolt?

by the time tager gets a spark bolt i almost always have 50 heat to burn on tempest dahlia if i need. and if he's using it quickly after he gets it, he'll probably miss. running away is your primary option, but you need to get that life lead first, which gets you the 50 heat i mentioned lol. at full screen, when your magnetized, tager also has no good way to get you close. 6a is free to winded 3c, grab, or winded jump. tager in the air is hilarious (6a, jump up and grab, lobelia and run away are all pretty much completely safe). if tager's using 5d/4d, you can use projectiles at full screen and a counter hit will get you a combo long enough to end the magnetism. and if you're feeling scared, there's always winded backdash, and you have to tell me what tager can do against winded backdash bc i thought that was safe. edit: brice....is that coopa?

rachel vs tager is just sad in cs2. not having jump-cancellable fork makes it "somewhat" more bearable for tager in extend, but there's still nothing tager can do besides take low-percentage guesses or lose to time-out. i can say with confidence that playing with copperdabbit, balonios, and mike z, that the matchup for arakune compared to tager is at least winnable.... lambda can lock rachel down and rachel has to make a guess on how to approach. winded ground or air dashing is a guess against lambda. trying to work your way in is near impossible against people like severin who know what they're doing. i'm saying that if you put an equal high level lambda and rachel together, rachel will not win nearly half the time. it's a large advantage for the lambda player...come on, at least 4-6 finally, i know ragna is better, but he didn't get THAT many buffs that he's even with rachel. she can still zone the crap out of him, and all he can do is hope rachel makes a zoning error, not unlike lambda v rachel. then again, maybe you know something about lambda v rachel that i don't. you can't summon safely on ground or in air, even if you're above lambda, and once you're in neutral game, you're screwed. and if lambda gets you in the corner, you're actually even more screwed bc lambda's mixup actually isn't that bad if you have nowhere to run ps. this may not be accurate, but against rachels that like to winded tech i mash 2a

that matchup chart is dumb...rachel vs lambda for example...not 45 - 55 rachel vs. tager is 55 - 45...come on....and the rachel vs. arakune is 60 - 40? but not rachel vs. tager? come on...... ragna doesn't have 0 matchups not in his favor ...i could go on.... the only accurate thing about this chart is who has an advantage...it isn't accurate on how much of an advantage....