MoralHazardPay

As in random neutral swoops? Put pressure on them but following them into the air, anti-air grabbing, or airthrowing. If someone chickenblocks it means you have a chance to bleed them of meter and keep the pressure going.

I guess I can stop practicing swoop airthrows. And hitting PSH isn't a weird technique, it's literally how you RC without using K

Don't use a macro button for YRC off stance, you need to hit PSH as you are holding down K. It also only has YRC points when the meter ticks up, not at any point

You don't use it on wake-up. You use it as a threat to stop people from poking out of your pressure or a punish predictable moves. Don't pop it unless you have a YRC on deck. What I like to do is to use it after a blocked normal and mix that up with pressure resets such as the needle, ball, and IAD. If Elphelt's looking for a late 2S to beat a of your followups or be safe against others it's a full combo punish. Also, something to test tonight; is his meter gain via that move governed by hits or damage absorbed?

What's the best way to whiff the airdash and go low? I worry that high blitz and 6p on reaction to the swoop is going to hurt if you don't do it off a Ball or Needle setup

I find that it isn't so much that you can't just block for a while but that Axl has terrible defensive mobility. You block for a while but still need to make a hard read to get out of many situations thanks to crappy air movement and no jab. I actually find dealing with Slayer pressure easier than most other characters because his style of "give them enough rope to hang themselves" is already in line with what you already do on the defense, so you've just got more options (that get horribly punished if you screw up) to choose from. It's why I find the Leo matchup to be pretty scary even if in Axl's favor; he can do reasonably safe pressure with gatlings into 6K for a while then start doing tick throws and stance mixups

My general issue with Elphelt is that she can do a high grenade toss and see how you react; it's going to lock you down if you don't either hit it or take evasive actions, which gives her room to get in. You can stop her from doing this by keeping the pressure on, but if you lose momentum at all it's shotgun loops for days. Yeah, Ram is a lot easier after they broke her knees; she did quite well back in 1.0 against Axl. As for Zato, he can kind of skip past pokes with Break the Law YRC and bring Eddie with him, so I have a lot of trouble there. Venom is definitely a bad matchup for sure; I'd actually put May as a reasonably good matchup. The only thing you really have to look out for is 6H going over here when used too close as a surprise overhead, but resen is pretty oppressive in that matchup. You don't want her to get setup with Seaworld of course, but that's pretty similar to not letting Ram setup either. Leo's a good matchup, but it's a bit too swingy for me to think it's great. All Leo has to do is tag or trade with one far ranged normal and H Boom YRC to start putting pressure on you and he'll destroy Axl up close.

IMO, he's got 3 really good matchups and 3 really terrible matchups. Axl tends to smack around Slayer, Potemkin, and I-No as they have trouble getting in his blind pots and their offensive maneuverability can be seriously limited by his 5P, 6K, and Rensen. His two absolutely godawful matchups are Chipp and Millia because they give zero shits about your chains and are able to ignore much of your defense. I'd also say that Elphelt is a really bad matchup as you have to smack the grenade out of the air or she's in for pretty much free. Everyone else is kind of in the middle. There are some matchups which lean a bit against Axl like Ky where Stun Edge YRC beats any non-Rensen poke into a full combo, and others which lean a bit towards Axl like Leo where you can keep him out reasonably well so long as you make sure he never gets out a H Boom YRC or knocks you down.

It's Steve H; that shit's said in good humor, not as a proclamation from on high. The air greed sever maaaaaay be my fault though, as I asked him if Ky had one when I was just starting Xrd. If it goes back earlier than that it's probably just a common thing to ask after getting your ass whooped by his Ky

It also makes the f.S canceled into his unblockable quite scary. Man, he still doesn't think Slayer got what he needed? Nice to see he appreciates new Axl though.

So you'd argue that it's not that Blitz Shield is weak, but rather that it is too strong and thus negates a lot of possible options, so only tactics which avoid it are used? I'm kind of split. On one hand I really like that it's a universal reversal mechanism if you can properly call out high/low. It's really satisfying to land one... but I do worry that it's kind of got this niche dominant strategy thing going on.

The general idea behind reversals in an offensively oriented game is that they should be high risk low reward. You can do this several ways, with the most obvious being making reversals horribly unsafe on block or whiff and have limited rewards on hit. You can add reversal safe oki. You can make reversals situation specific. You can also make their execution difficult. 1 tends to be my favorite option; you need a hard read our else you end up in a worse position than you started. 2 only really works of you make reversal safe oki much worse than non safe oki so that reversals aren't a dominated strategy. 3 works best as a universal system, such as Blitz Shields where you always have the option but it's a super hard read. 4 is just poor game design, as it is balancing for the bottom rather than the top while just making newbies frustrated.

May. Her aquarium gimmick in Xrd is entirely about controlling space via the beach ball and dolphins.

I spent a few hours playing this matchup today, so my basic thoughts. You lose at full screen. If he can keep you from getting in Resen range with charge he's gold. Your Rensen is your god here for beating his zoning and getting in; you need to predict a move and get a lovetap in. You want to be playing maybe two characters away from him; make it so that you can bully with 2HS, 3P, and 6K while occasionally tossing out a 6H. You also lose if he gets pressure going, so you don't want to be too close. Be warned that his jumps tend to take him over a Rensen upswing, so YRC that on a whiff. He can safe jump the hell out of your DP, don't bother with it on knockdown. I had trouble low profiling his jump ins, so watch out for that.

So, Dead on Time: When is it best used? BDC for invincibility through startup to blow through moves? Instead of Mappa RC when in Hellfire or worried about a Burst? EW seems to be a combo tool and crappy wakeup, while the aerial OD is more shenanigan based or for massive corner combos.