kro_

While this string works against a lot of people that don't know the matchup, practically everyone with good experience fighting Rachel knows about the gap between blocked 5cdc and 236a. It's the perfect opportunity to counter with an invincible or projectile-invulnerable move. Ragna has ID, Noel has 5d and 3c, Nu has backdash into 5d, Tager has sledge, etc. The reason a lot of people get hit by it is that they were probably trying to exploit the gap but missed the timing due to lag or whatever. It's best not to commit yourself to a blocked 5cdc unless you're going for guardbreak or have pumpkin cover.

I love how that video starts with Arakune practicing 6c loop against CPU Jin.

I can make teams but not sure about singles. And yes, I'll team up with you A-gnat. Gonna be stacked

I have difficulty landing the j.2c on Noel too so generally I just opt not to do it. It is possible though. Another thing that helps with that combo in general is omitting the 2nd j.b - especially when starting from a high juggle like chair or a high 6a CH. You want the j.c to hit at a point where you are nearly level with your opponent. If the opponent was already high in the air when you started the juggle, you'll need to alter it to make sure the j.c hits at the correct height to land the dj j.2c. Sometimes, the dash 6a > super part will only get you 1-4 hits on your BBL, which is a lot more common on 'thinner' characters like Noel and Carl. The solution is to just dash a little longer and hit with 6a when the character is almost directly above you. You can even hit with 6a in such a manner that you'll visually cross them up. I did a lot j.3cd too. It works on a lot of characters but I never bothered figuring out which characters it doesn't work on.

You guys need to man up. 18 pages of mostly useful info is a godsend. There's also google.

Rachel can crouch under his 5b at the right range.

Or you could just take out Tager

Hey, that looks just like a bell curve to me.

It's a difficult matchup. You can't rush him wildly due to threat of his DP. You can't zone him forever because his ice wave super (and to a lesser extent ice car) can catch you from across the screen. And you can't rely on 6a to bail you out of anti-air situations due to the stupid range on his j.b and the threat of his air projectiles. His normals outrange yours easily and most of them are jc-able. His ability to do simple frame traps and cover a lot of oki options with 5b over and over is frustrating. His 5c > 5d will eat all of your attempts to backdash or jump out of pressure. Mashing out of ice can be mentally taxing, and he can take advantage of this by going for resets. Finally, his ability to spam D ice car over and over to corner you due to Rachel's massive grounded hitbox will piss you off. But Rachel is Rachel. He is just as afraid of you as you are of him. Pay attention to his heat gauge. If he has less than 50, you can zone him more effectively and he can't do DP > RC as a get out of jail free card. If he has less than 25, he can't bait your 6a with j.236d projectiles. Use that to your advantage. Bait his DPs with careful rushdown and punish with 6b, prevent him from gaining meter with strong zoning, and learn to become psychic with your 6a's. There is no easy way about it. You have to outsmart him consistently while maintaining your momentum. Strong oki, zoning, and combos that end in knockdown are very important in doing so.

Jump before doing 3d.

Practice the first two BnB combos listed (windless air combo and basic frog combo). Most other combos are variations of these two.

This is when it's worthwhile to go into training mode and work on your IBs. IB the sledge and you can usually counter with a fast poke like 5b or just start doing some pressure with jumping normals. As a last resort, use those alpha counters and wait out the magnetism by staying far away. Also try to backdash his 5d before you get magnetized. 5d doesn't move him forward so you will be safe from possible 720 setups. This does not work if you are magnetized, though. Practice IBing things like sledge, ice car, and hell's fang. Then move on to key points in less common characters, multi-hit moves for free meter, and eventually to some of the more common block strings. Relying on barrier too much can be detrimental because it pushes you out of the range of some of your faster counterpokes. The risk:reward for IBing isn't as good as parrying in 3s, but it's still important to learn.

Play 6a and 6b footsies and rush her down. That is all.

Use 3c9d instead of 3cd. It moves you forward and floats the opponent high enough to juggle with 5b or 6c afterwards.

I need to say something. Guardcrushing a good Nu player in the corner from 100% life to 0% is the best feeling in the world. OK, time for more theory-fighter. Some typical Nu block strings: 5dd 4dd 236d (basic high-low mixup) 5dd 4dd tk j.214d (high-high mixup) 5dd 236d (low) 5dd j.2dd j.214cd j.2dd (one of her safest block strings with little room for counterattack) ^ Her anti-air block strings are similar to the one above. Get used to these since you will be blocking a lot. If you are able to, IB the 5dd and backdash in anticipation of 4dd. This will give you enough time to summon a ground pumpkin and rush in. Her tk 214d overhead only works when she's relatively close to you, so you don't need to worry about a second overhead if she's far. IBing 236d and then quickly going for a 6b CH can work if Nu is close. IBing swords in general is great for building meter, because you're gonna need those RCs to land a hit on her if you get in. If Nu knocks you down, you pretty much have to neutral tech. Take advantage of this by IBing the very predictable 5dd that follows. Successful blocking may drain Nu's meter if she tends to go for rc 236d/214d automatically. Other than that, the most reliable ways I've found to get in on Nu are: 1) Anticipate a 5d and use a winded airdash/jump + j.b/j.2c to catch her during her recovery. 2) Anticipate a 6d/2d and do a winded dash into 6b. 3) Jump/Double jump forward until she whiffs a sword and you are at the range where a 3d winded pumpkin will tag her. Then use a second wind to keep her in block stun and rush her when you land. 4) Bait 2c with a pumpkin summon to delay your fall and punish her. Even if she blocks whatever you did to approach her, just keep on rushing her down and take some chances. If she's pushing you away with barrier, 5b j.3cd will whiff so don't do that blindly. Throwing is quite useful against Nu players that like to use barrier a lot. Always go for j.2d 214b oki at the end of air combos. Do not let her out of the corner, chase her air techs with 6a, and try to keep some meter handy to rc on reaction to her burst. Nu's counter assault is identical to her 5b, meaning it has very short range. Try and bait it with jump-canceled attacks and max range 236a in the corner. Going for the guardcrush/mixup in the corner should be your goal for the entire match. Basically, you do not want her to knock you away even with a burst or CA. If she does, you'll most likely be low on wind and will be forced to deal with a barrage of full-screen mixups before you get the chance to attempt to get in again. Facing Nu is good training for improving your reaction time and learning to apply a lot of the more advanced tactics in the game. At the very least, it helps to think that way when you're getting raped repeatedly.

Side-switching lag is a killer. Keep throwing out 236b's instead of pumpkins.

Try to wind a pumpkin at him and follow it up on the recovery of his dives and dashes. And use the pumpkin to chase air techs after he gets hit by seeds or lightning.

If I'm not magnetized, I will usually go for the backdash. Mashing backdash isn't as bad as it seems. In fact, wind-boosted backdash (454d) is very good for escaping Tager pressure if not in the corner. If I am magnetized, then I will make the extra effort to fish for IB's and counterpoke him with 5b. But if my barrier is running low, I'm in the corner, and he's mixing it up too well, just dead angle out of there. Tager isn't a bad character at all if you let him get in on you. The reason why he's low-tier is that he's not supposed to be able to get in on you in the first place and everyone has some stupid abusable combos on him.

The 5b 3c will work. I just usually think about it as hitting them with a low after a blocked j.3dc 5b. It'll probably do a bit more damage.

This was the windless combo I was talking about earlier Soniti. Windless, 100% meter, works on everyone midscreen 3c 236a rc dash 6a 632146c 214a 3c 236a frog hits (214b) 3c 22a 3c 214a oki = 5060 dmg Not much room to hit confirm with 1-hit 3c, but plenty of time to hit confirm on characters that 3-hit 3c works against.

Yeah, I was referring to the j.b (dj) j.2c combos. I play a little more conservatively in tournaments than I do in casuals. So any combos that I can't do with a good success rate or have too many variables in setup are ones that I tend to avoid. Speaking of tournaments, A-gnat and Mike Z prompted me to actually go into training and practice some Tager-specific combos. If you've ever played marvel, the following combo is very similar to various standing infinites on Sentinel: Windless (Tager only) ~2200 dmg j.a j.b * j.2c (delay) j.c dash 5b jc j.a j.b * j.2c (delay) j.c dash 5b 3c (1-hit) 214a oki *This is where you can mix things up. If you put a short delay here, you may or may not cross Tager up ambiguously, reset, and continue the combo with another 2 reps of the loop. If Tager manages to backdash, you might whiff. But if you think he's going to try to backdash, just wait a little longer and catch him during the recovery with j.2c j.c. The above combo will be cut short and turn into this: Windless (Tager only) ~2900 dmg j.2c j.c dash 5b jc j.a j.b * j.2c (delay) j.c dash 5b jc j.a j.b * j.2c (delay) j.c dash 5b 3c (1-hit) 214a oki You can go for more resets here as well. If Tager manages to block and is using barrier, you'll get pushed back further. Solution: Add more j.a's and j.b's, omit the j.2c, and make sure you hit with j.c right before landing and whittle away his barrier guage. I think someone posted a video of this in the Tager matchup thread. It drives Tager players nuts.

You can 6a his triple shurikens at startup, block all of them with the upper body invincibility, and land a CH on him for a free combo. If Bang corners you and puts up one of those wheels, he can get behind you even if you're all the way in the corner and cross you up. He can also feint the crossup into a down-forward air dash and go for a quick low attack. Do not burst predictably especially when he has you in a ground string. He can cancel into a guardpoint or more commonly a super. This will avoid the burst and punish you for massive damage.

I thought that combo only works consistently against Arakune. I have seen it used against a few other characters like Ragna in super setups, but that usually requires you to hit the opponent with 2c while he is above at you at a very odd angle. So I don't think it should be a BnB, but rather some character-specific setup.

I've been trying out a lot of backdash, pumpkin, frog, 236a over their falling body in the corner online. People seriously cannot stop themselves from getting hit since they don't want to neutral tech. Mixup opportunities are great and the potential damage is really good. But I still don't think it's worthwhile unless you have super meter and you started the combo setup with moves that have poor proration. A frog juggle ending with 3c is significantly more damage and you still get good positional advantage. That being said, the setup is great for a guard break. 2-3 poles super blocked will drain barrier/guard meter very quickly, which is almost like forcing a burst. And the super gives you time to re-summon and create another setup while they block.

MSY (Rachel) vs Arakune http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm7786382 Haven't seen many Rachel vs Arakune matches in this thread so added this. Just 1 match. The others are Jin vs Carl and Ragna vs Tager.