Kinkuli

Yaa managed to win my first tournament at Central hachioji ^^. No high dan players though, but i'm still happy! The guy i played in finals had 14 or 15dan hazama but i guess he opted to play ragna for more fun. Either way feels good! I also managed to do 2hit hitconfirm to AH before my opponent bursted!

What the previous guy said! I guess you could have used more gustaf's in neutral. You probably could have gotten few Gustaf CHs here and there. If the opponent starts to jump around to bait out gustaf's, then just be more careful with them. What i noticed you might wanna work on hitconfirming 5C to BHS. You threw out atleast 2 on block so there's that i guess. You also seemed to push buttons after blocked 6D/3d few times. Worked there but might wanna keep in mind that on block you are -2. You also seemed to delay tech a lot which is good! If at any point while delay teching you see kagura going for the crossup move, just DP him. More so in corner. The move is really slow so shouldn't be a problem to reacting to it. I'm not sure but you also might be able to just delay tech and 5B them on the recovery of the move also. Not enough match up exp on my part to say for sure. On combos. Nothing major really, but i think you got few back throws to corner and i think you could have gotten more dmg. You should be able to do Back throw - TCL - 5B - 2C and so on in corner. If you have UW then just go straight to valiant. Also remember when you use 3C before valiant!! I saw you use it few times before valiant part of the combo and then use it again during valiant. On crossups. Yeah maybe learn and think how you might be able to implement them more. Kagura is a special case where i would use them sparingly. Flash kick and all....If you get away with it go for it, but just something to keep in mind. Know punishes. Might have happened more but i noticed that atleast once you punished blocked flash kick with just 5A. Could have used 5D or 5B. 5D is better if you have no weakpoints(i still just autopilot 5B ). 3D is also a good choice if you can use it. Antiairing. So ok this is more kagura specific tbh, but in this match up i would just give up on trying to use 2C or 6B as an antiair. I swear to god every kagura i've seen just does early jC and you just get CHd cos that move probably hits whole screen. Maybe just BD and see if you can tag him with 2C or 5C. I might have missed stuff or typed funny stuff. 6am and all :3. I'm also totally stealing that jA to air throw reset!

Azrael's pressure it actually full of holes where one can DP. Even more so if they IB shit. I also have this problem against more versed players. Was playing against HARA's ragna in a tourney and he just IB DP'd everything i did. In those cases just need to cut strings shorts, bait the DP and punish accordingly. Reacting to IB's is the key i think. I'm getting better noticing when my gustaf's get IBd but i still need to work on reacting to 5A, 2A and 5B IBs. At least in match ups where you need to keep DPs in mind. But i'm glad i could help. I'm personally having a bit of a down perioid now. I feel that I really need someone to talk with and play matches offline. Getting good ones at Black eye with nemo, jiyuna and dora, but probably would need to talk and analyze the matches more.

You could try to incorporate something like 5A 5A to dash crossup or crossup dashes in general, like let's say jB to crossup dash Tiger magnum/5A etc. . You seem to rely heavily just on 5B and 5BB. Didn't see that many 5As or 2As. And lose those random valiants man, painful to watch! But i guess you already know this haha ^^. Regarding pressure game. Once opponent starts to understand how azrael works, his pressure game becomes a lot less scary tbh. You just need to keep things fresh by doing 5A to 5A, 5A to 5D, 5A to 2A etcetc. Use gustaf once in a while (I autopilot gustaf too much atm!!!) if you think opponent isn't gonna mash, maybe throw out 6D or 3D, you have health, you can take few hits. 5B to iad jB to 5D etc. Tbh just throw out more 5Ds till your opponent starts to block them. You can use it from so many situations it's almost stupid. In corner you can do the fake cross up jB. I smile everytime i see ragna whiff 2C when using the setup. Also Gustaf RC to 6D/3D is fucking godlike. Neutral: Poke with 5C, throw out 6Cs if you can get away with it. gustaf/dash tk gustaf. Maybe Throw out 2C if you think opponent is gonna air dash towards you. All in all, you need to play Azrael like a bully. Sure he can rushdown like any other char if you just happen to make the right calls. I'm sure you do this already but maybe just sit down with few matches of dogura and try to take notes what he does. Just x-copy what he does and you are probably in the right direction.

Some of my thoughs from playing with Jiyuna and Nemo. Koko sitting under lightning pole: Can't do much. Need to somehow pop the pole. If she tries to setup fireball to teleport, you can do pre-emptive growler to absorb it but you still end up in bad position. OR you can try to avoid the fireball by jumping and back/forward dashing depending on what koko does. General thoughs: 6C is probably the best AND the worst thing in this matchup. On correct read it can tag a lot of stuff. Or then again you can just crack shoot right into koko 6A and blargh. All around this matchup feels that you need to outsmart and outread Koko player badly. If not, you're gonna have a bad time. I don't feel that you can play this matchup too safely. If you do, you let koko do her shit and you get fucked(still need to study Dogura vs tsuji matches but yeah). Every hit you get, make them count. If you get her to corner, you win IF you can outread her. She has options, even more so with meter. In nutshell: Probably gonna be your hardest MU. Need to outplay and outsmart opposing Koko badly. Don't think there's nothing more to add. Most of the stuff already has been said in other posts.

Soo i got answer from dogura and apparently the setup i detailed earlier isn't plus on block =(. It's still a decent mixup i guess!

You should be able to BHS Hakumen's face even if he hits you with 3C from max range. If you happen to be near corner and got 100 heat you can do around 5.3k as a punish.

Well tbh it really depends if you want to use the meter to apply more pressure since you get more corner carry AND weakpoint of your choice. Afaik that is the best route from TCL RC. The way you make it work is that you delay the first jC before 6A. Its easier on some characters and harder on some. Learning the timing has other benefits also as if you already have a weakpoint, then you can do iad jC 6A to valiant which should be a bit better than the TCL RC dash tk valiant route. I actually need to work on this myself.

If you have problems using jC after jD RC, you can try using jB. I find the timing to be a lot easier that way and you can actually do something like ....jC delay jD RC jB TC valiant and go from there. You might lose some damage but i think its easiest one and you get fullscreen corner carry. EDIT: whelp actually going for valiant one does around 200 more dmg.

Dunno if this has been discussed (didn't see it in Ice cube's okizeme tutorial) but it seems like you can do something like TCL to forward dash 6D/3D in midscreen to get perfect meaty timing and after you are in about +1 situation. I'm probably gonna make sure by asking dogura because i've seen him use this against opponents who have no reversals or don't have 5f jabs (using azraels 5A after the setup trades with 5f 5As and wins if they are slower). But like said i still wanna make sure by asking dogura.

Can be optimized more. 5C CH - CT - IAD jD - 3C - 2C - 2B - TC - Valiant - 5C~6 - 6C~6 - jC - 6B~6 - 623C - 6A - BHS ||DMG 7013 One i whipped up based on the 5C FC video and if my memory serves me correct this one should be better than the one in the video Corner 5C CH - CT - IAD jD - 3C -2C - 6D - 5C - TCL - 5B - jA jB jC jc jD || DMG 6125 If you already have UW then you can do something like to get LW also Corner UW 5C CH - CT - IAD j2D - 3C - 2C - 6D - 5C - TCL - 5B - jA jB jC jc jD || DMG 6125 OR if you just want to get more dmg for the cheap price of 50% heat you can do something like Corner UW 5C CH - CT - IAD j2D - 3C - 2C - 3D - 236D - 5C~6x4 - 6A - 5C - TCL - BHS || DMG 7868 IAD into j2D or jD only works on corner but you can just do a jump and time the moves to get the same effect if you are midscreen. Thank you based dogura for streaming :3. EDIT: Might be able to add like few more points of damage by adding 623C somewhere there but personally i don't like using it. Too easy to fuck up and only adds few points of damage so...

Yeah probably. Played some casuals with the rachel before hand and growler got me into trouble so i guess i just opted not to use it subconsciously :3. So far i've seen like maybe 3 azrael's beside me, i have no idea about if he's their main or not. Mostly seen Jin, noel or ragna. other than that pretty balanced i think. No kunes, amanes or carls. Makes it really hard not to get nervous if you see one. No idea how they work . I don't think i have won a single match against carl when i've seen one. No idea how to block him. Sidenote: hungry for more tournaments. I had like month hiatus from arcades due spending too much on other shit. Need to get back to the habit of going few times a week (and attending every tourney i can!).

Ok i can try to help out a bit i guess. 1. It really depends on the matchup and the opponent. Forward dashing is good if you know that your opponent is not gonna run at you and throw out something (like ragna 5B etc.). To make it somewhat safer you can jump cancel the dash and air barrier. But generally against people with long pokes(hakumen, jin, ragna to some extend, zoners etc.) you are gonna have somewhat hard time on getting in. Only thing you can really do is be patient, get in little by little and once you're in, explode on their faces and make them dead. You can also try using gustaf sometimes, but more often it just will get you in trouble so it should be used sparingly tbh. IMO azrael is a bit like tager, but Azrael is more mobile etc. 2. I'm not entirely sure about this one but i would say that the main point of throwing out 5B is that it's somewhat fast, okish active frames with a good hitbox so it probably wins some stuff if it's already out. Though as a thumb rule i'd say only push it if you are in range for it to hit or if you want to antiair something as it works pretty decently as an antiair. Throwing it out against let's say Mu it's probably gonna get you killed. 5C too good and all :3. I hope this makes sense. I'm not that good on typing out stuff i might know (or be wrong about )

Yeah, tried it out in training mode myself last night also. You sir are correct. Well like you can see from the ragna matches, even crossup-dashes can be blown up so~. Yeah i can get behind that you need to respect opponents with good DPs, but in the end it's all about reading your opponent.

Yeah made a lot of combo drop and sub-optimal combos. On the ragna DP i was waiting to see if opponent was going to RC. He ofc didn't have meter so that was totally my miss. The following jB that i did, i actually have no idea what i was thinking x). On the 6D -> 5A. Yeah you're right. Should cut that one out. Somewhat bad habit from online. A lot of people just like to upback all the time there =/. For the 6A -> 5A do you mean the situation in the corner against ragna? On that one i was banking on the 6A either going trough ID and if he was blocking, hitting on the last few active frames to get frame advantage. And yeah. Backdashing is cool. Need to stop being cool so i don't get blownup . Appreciate the feedback! The tournament was a lot of fun. Gonna go there again next time also.

http://www.twitch.tv/central804/b/485581516 team tournament should be there. Starts around 1h5mins. Shouldn't be too hard to figure out which azrael i was D:. Some notes. Felt pretty nervous for some reason. On top of my head i think i did too many random dives, ate stuff randomly because i was being dumb (few plat bubbles for example) and was a bit too buster happy in neutral i think. Also need to work on blocking skills in general, improve neutral game and get more matchup experience. Against the rachel player i didn't adapt and didn't tag the rolls, buster would probably have been a good counter. @Ice cube: Looked through briefly and saw you used dive "a lot". You got away with it so i guess it's ok.

To throw your opponent off. Gustaf is better in terms of safety and should probably be your go to tool against mashing. If i'm not going senile i think dogura uses something > tiger magnum randomly sometimes. Might just be during casuals but yeah. EDIT: Basicly my logic behind this is that to me doing Tiger is somewhat similar to Fei Long's rekkas. In Azrael's case of course it not the "best" tool, but it there for you to make your opponent think about your other options too. If it doesn't work for you, then you don't need to do it. I sometimes check my opponents reactions what do they do if i just go to Tiger few times. If it's no good then it goes back in to the toolbox for another day.

I get away with a lot of 5B IAD jB in japan tbh. Even in Hazama matchup. If you just don't do it everytime it's ok. This actually reminds me of talking with my friend and saying that with bang it totally okay to do something like 2C to 5B times. If you look videos, dora does it "all the time". You need to make people fear pushing buttons. Azrael has a lot tools to do that. Most notable are canceling to gustaf or tiger magnum. And again like i already said earlier you do a lot of 5B to 5BB to stuff. It gets predictable fast and people can and WILL disrespect you because they can do that if you don't make them fear your other options. I would say that your biggest problem currently is not mixing up. I might be wrong here but for example i saw 0 5Ds from 5A/2A/2B. Everytime you did it was from 5BB. 5BB to something is a good tool, but tbh you are using it too much. Also using 2D and 6D sometimes in pressure is also okay. Dogura gets away with it, i get away with it and so on. Main point it, you must instill fear in your opponent. Azrael hurts like hell. Random mashing against him get you in early grave if he just makes the good reads. I wouldnt personally use rising jD. Like i said you have good grounded tools to deal with mashing. Should probably use those instead. All in all if opponent is rapid firing something, then im sorry to say he just has you downloaded =/. I might just be saying the same thing i said earlier but yeah.

TBH both of them are more or less mixup tools. Both enchance your mixup by allowing you to combo after 5D or 2D but UW is arguably more useful as it gives you access to valiant combos for good damage and corner carry. Valiant is also easier to combo into than Hornet when you are midscreen(atleast in my opinion). Ending with j2D can be beneficial if you already have UW. This way your mixup potential goes "through the roof" and you also get access to UB BHS. PS. Gonna go to my first tournament here on the soil of japan on saturday. Gonna be random 3v3 teams i think. Wish me luck!

He also updates the info on twitter, so you can follow @maneater_dgr for stream links. @AMB Bakery: Yeah the usefulness probably varies depending on the opponents. I've had a lot of opponents who techs instantly and a lot who likes to stay down. The setup itself feels a bit wonky at the moment for me, need to do it perfectly or else you eat 2A/5A mash =/. I'm 100% sure you can atleast beat 7F jabs but i'm still not 100% sure about 6F and 5F ones. It also feels character specific so there's that also (I'm personally a huge fan of universal stuff!).

So i'm not sure if this is already been discussed earlier but here i go anyways. I've noticed while lurking in dogura's stream that he's been doing corner stuff like something > 236D > 6 5C > 6 6C > 6 jC > 5B > delay 6A > IAD jD -> 2D whiff 5A. I briefly tried it out in the training mode and it seems that by doing this you can tag opponents who don't wanna wakeup and get free LW and if they wakeup you still meaty them with 5A. But im getting somewhat mixed results while testing this. Sometimes 5A trades with mash, sometimes not. I think it has to do with the height where you land the jD so you can do the followup. Also timing seems to be somewhat hard. Can anyone else help me test this if this is not tested already? So far i have been able to beat out 6f and 7F jabs but 5F ones seems to beat the setup. Loses to fast reversals like ID.

You can also do something like TCL - super jump forward j2D. This one should safe jump and also tag rolls. When your opponent starts to respect this you can start doing IAD jA jB for high and empty jump 2A for low. This is easier to see however than the ones ice Cube posted i think. But it's something to keep in mind. Ps. Nice finds, gonna steal those right away!

Ok so i went to central hachioji to test few things out regarding 22C etc. So what i found out was that wallstick or wallbounce have nothing to do with being able to do 22C, so my belief was completely wrong. Yuhoke is correct in that 22C can be used on downed AND airborne opponents IF they have downed state. Basicly like AMB Bakery said 3D also inflicts downed state so you can use 22C after it like in the video. The state probably carries over till the end of the combo so you can do hits before doing 22C and so on. I only tested it out shortly but some moves(other than 3C) that also enable the usage of 22C were forward throw, 6D and 3D which are probably the most important ones. The info itself probably is already known by japanese players as the combos i was able to do were inferior to BnBs that you can see in most Azrael matches. Azrael's BnBs seem pretty optimized already so there probably isn't that much usage for 22C in combos damage-wise. BUT what i did notice was that you can actually use 22C to swap positions! So lets say you stand in a corner, have lw on opponent and confirm 5B - 2C - 3D starter. From here doing the normal combo carries the opponent away from corner but if you do 6A - 22C and time it correctly you can continue the combo towards the corner you just stood in. You can also see this in the video which started the discussion. With UW it seemed like you cannot do 5B - 2C - 6D - 6A - 22C because opponent won't bounce high enough from 6D for 6A - 22C to be comboable. I might be wrong on this one and i'll probably test it out again after i get the console version. You can also do the position swap from forward throw by doing throw - 6A - 22C and so on. Like said damage-wise these seemed to be inferior to current BnBs but i think it is good to know these options as you can pretty easily get opponent to the corner with this. I hope all this made sense! EDIT: Forgot to mention that during valiant combos you can use 22C only after 3C. It basicly inflicts the downed state on opponent even though he's also in wallstick state. So if you wanna do dump loop then you need to use 623C!

Hello! First time poster, long time lurker here! I have to agree with AMB Bakery on this one and say it's 22C. From what i have tried in arcade, you can use 22C in some situations even though the opponent is not in downed state, like in valiant combos after 6A - 3C - dump or 3C - 6A - dump. This would lead me to believe that 22C can also be used on downed opponents, wallsticked opponents and wallbounced opponents. To be sure, I can probably go test it out on Friday when im near Central Hachioji arcade anyways. PS. Yuhoke pm me! I need to hook you up with other finns who are gonna get the game!