Tari

Played this matchup a little bit yesterday and got my ass handed to me, haha. The other Rachel had his combos down, and was fun to watch (except the me dying part). :P It feels about as silly as it always has. There isn't too much difference from previous games in neutral, but taking any hit from lobelias really causes momentum build-up to stop for whoever got hit, far more so than in any previous games.

I agree, the latter combo route is so much more fun. :P When you whiff that combo, though....

1. Not sure if there's much else you can do after landing a Happy Magika unless you want to RC it for a combo. I don't think it's much more than a 'get-off-of-me' move. 2. Getting the bat item and using it, or relying on the universal, but harder, option of good blocking. IB to open up gaps in the opponent's blockstring where you can hit them or jump out, or use barrier to shove the opponent far away enough that their blockstring stops working.

Poor Hakumen. xD I'll see if I can swing by. Been a while since I last played any GG, so I should probably brush up before I enter a tourney, but eh. Not sure if I'll be trying to enter CP with Rachel or Plat or Iza at this point, either, lol. Probably Izayoi for this one.

Her 5B can be followed up with 236C on hit for a pretty basic combo, or with 6C on block if you want to extend your blockstring a little. 623B and 623C are pretty reliable anti-airs, you just have to get used to using them slightly differently compared to Ragna's 6A. Remember that you can teleport cancel your specials on block as well.

Try her out and see if you like how she feels, perhaps. Run through some of her challenges. If you want to see how she plays, you can check out match videos, or you can try playing against people yourself. Heck, even just playing against the CPU is decent for getting the feel of a character. I find her to be pretty insanely fun, but she can be considered a little weird. Her offense game outside of GA mode is pretty lackluster, and her defensive game when being pressured isn't all that strong in general, but she's pretty okay other than that. Some people may have issue with her 5C being shorter range than her 5B, but that's not really a negative to the character.

Yeah, her astral is ridiculously good now. I just enjoy killing from cat chair, haha.

First one's a pretty interesting combo. Going to have to remember that one. We've been able to do the second one since CT. xD Still fun to see, though.

A lot of characters have to live with not having reversals, haha. Remember when you're blocking that IB + Barrier has increased pushback, so it can help you get out of some blockstrings. I'd argue that 6A has its uses outside of jump-ins (which can actually still beat it if they jump cancel or land and block), but it's pretty specific and you'd probably want 50 meter on hand anyway. Her super is a pretty real reversal, by the by. 7 frame startup means it punishes whiffed 5A/2A.

Pretty much everything TD said above, though I feel like I should note that the 5BD > 6A combo can be pretty nasty to try to confirm off of an instant overhead starter (if you do j.2DA > j.B/j.C) because you might not be in range to do it without micro-dashing after landing from the overhead anyway. Haven't seen this yet, but it sounds pretty interesting. Are you talking about a new route from the level 2 j.2C combo above? If our list was in a more finalized state (sorry I'm not very helpful here ), it wouldn't be difficult to just make a demonstrative combo video. We could of course just timestamp match videos, but that feels pretty stop-gappish an approach.

I've only really seen CT used in combos to amp up damage for a finishing combo, but I'll admit I haven't seen too many videos in general. BBL is still used midscreen, but you do some weird stuff off of it now, like 'BBL > 214A > 4B > 236A > etc.' Not completely sure on the midscreen combo route, and I think at least some of the time, people just opt for immediate oki instead. The j.2C (level 2) > 214A > 1D > 5CC combos still work, haha. Most of her midscreen stuff actually still works... but with the way everything feels floatier, it's way harder to confirm the j.2C (level 2) combos. Not sure if there are any situations where it'd be more worthwhile to do the j.2C combo over winding the opponent down into a 5B > 6A > 236A loop, though. Maybe at certain heights?

Oh, go figure, lol. Did you ever find any semi-practical use for it? It'd be a pretty jackass move to use a taunt combo to kill someone, but I'm still curious. <_<

I'll get around to it eventually! >_< My main enjoyment with Rachel right now is from throwing lobelias at people and killing people with astrals. I mean, when even stuff like 2C (CH) > 9D > Astral is a legitimate combo, you know you have to use it, haha. But yeah, as far as actual combos go in this game, I'm pretty sure I have a better grasp of Izayoi than Rachel at the moment. Shouldn't be as hard to learn Rachel's new stuff as it is to learn a new character, though.

Yeah, I'm in a similar boat, haha. My Rachel play is pretty terrible at the moment. I think my Izayoi is actually more executionally effective at the moment, which isn't saying much, since my Izayoi sucks. Haven't really put any time into Rachel or Platinum in this game, yet.

@Rele: While I agree that CT can be a useful tool, I figure I should point out that your setup has a pretty large gap between the 5B and the CT. Opponents with reversal moves will probably just DP there on reaction to the CT flash/startup. Characters without a DP have a harder time dealing with it, as George's activation shrinks the gap that players have to react in. I think the main reasons you don't see CT in mixup, other than its very slow startup, are that Rachel has significantly better mixup options, using CT to start a combo means you won't generate any meter for a set duration, and using CT multiple times will cause you to just not have as much meter for combo damage as you otherwise would have. I'm not saying it's bad, though. It's just that it's a pretty expensive option that comes with some inherent danger. Pretty hilarious if you can drain an opponents barrier gauge in two mixups, haha. ----- On a completely unrelated note, did we get Rachel birthday art from ASW this year?

It'd be nice if you could combo it reliably, since it's a pretty terrible reversal option, but it does work alright for getting out of certain blockstrings and whatnot. I've said it before, but it's somewhat similar to Rachel's cat chair in application. Use it at your own risk. It can get people off of you, but it can also just get you destroyed, especially if you try it in a blockstring where the opponent can just cancel to DP, throw, low, or so-on. edit: on an unrelated note, did you guys know that the Trans-Am super activates on her taunt, too? You can totally start a combo with taunt that way, lol.

2B hits 3 frames faster, but it doesn't really matter if they hit on the same frame, since the overhead is pretty much unreactable at 14 frames anyway. They have to guess. It's just that if they guess right and you did the overhead, you end up losing 50 meter and gaining nothing (unless you're in GA mode).

The MU against Kagura seems okay. I mostly just item spammed and zoned him, since he has a terrible time trying to approach and has pretty much no mid-range game (our 5B is suitable for bothering the crap out of him). I just Mami'd him out of WYVERN half the time. The main problem with fighting him is the lack of a reliable way out of his corner pressure. Midscreen, it's not too bad, but his corner stuff is really dangerous and always leads to 4k+ damage. I've been saying this everywhere, by the by, but if you see Kagura do his 2-hit sword surf move (I think it's Ryuusenken?), you can IB the second hit and throw him out of his follow-up attacks. He can opt to stop attacking there, and he may be able to DP? But in the former case, I think you can probably still get the throw, and in the latter, that's a pretty bad option for him. Don't try attacking in that gap, though, because chances are he'll just do the sword bunt, which guardpoints and fatal counters. So corner air combos don't give oki anymore? I hadn't noticed that, but I've only played 3 or 4 games with Plat so far. Mostly being messed up by all the wallsticks and 3C knockback stuff right now. ...throwing people into astral is my current goal in life. >_>

I can't test at the moment, and I don't know where your combo is dropping, so here's a list the characters you're most likely to run into issues with in terms of aerial/falling hitboxes (assuming you're whiffing moves): Kagura Platinum Hakumen Mu/Noel/Nu Makoto (I think this is changed, though?) I might be leaving one or two characters out, but those are what I can recall off the top of my head. I'm not sure if they've fixed any of the hitboxes on those characters since CSE, but Platinum definitely still has an odd falling hitbox, Hakumen almost definitely still has his, and Kagura is confirmed to have a weird one as well.

You can KO with the taunt, it's just difficult because it does a minuscule amount of damage.

Ah, sorry, I hadn't tested it with teleports, just with Strike Fall. Someone else corrected me on it earlier today, too, haha. Thanks for the correction. I've only used it defensively so far. It feels a bit like Rachel's cat chair to me. Not a great reversal option, but it can work in some situations.

I'm tempted to buy the character announcer packs for CP, hm. Both of the ones I want apparently hate Ragna, haha. Platinum and Tsubaki. Tsubaki calls Hakumen "Hakumen-sama" and Jin "Jin-niisama!" Hahaha. ...and everyone seems angry at Rachel.

The 9j.B fuzzy is character specific. It'll whiff on characters with smaller hitboxes. edit: on an unrelated note, did anyone else notice that her taunt has a hit on it? lol. Looks like 80 P1, 85 P2.

Pretty much what C0R said. On an unrelated note, tk Noir can be used as an IAD crossup (like Ragna's Inferno Divider), but it can't be combo'd. Even in GA mode, if you try to followup with Strike Fall, you'll just end up in the wrong place in the sky and whiff completely. The only place it's comboable is in the corner, when your back is to the corner and the opponent is away from it. In that situation, you can RC and air combo. (Edit: I stand corrected. You can combo this in GA mode as long as you have 1 stock to teleport cancel it with 214D) It's not really worth it to IAD crossup with that move, though, since it's already a 14 frame overhead (4 frame jump startup, 10 frame move startup) if tk'd, and most people won't expect it, since Izayoi's blockstrings don't have overheads. :/ RC-ing it will allow you to do a fuzzy into j.B, or whiff a j.B and then jump to confirm a hit.

Blocking and getting shoved into the corner against this guy can be pretty terrible. His corner damage and pressure is significantly better than his midscreen and neutral game. Once you're in the corner and blocking, he can choose to do strings that have highs, lows, command throw, corner crossup, guardpoint frametrap (fatal counter, too), and other crap. Can be fairly confusing and difficult to deal with. It doesn't help that pretty much any corner hit will lead into 4k+ damage without meter, and he can pretty much always opt to end in air combo into super for the additional 1k minimum damage. Fortunately, 6A is good against some of his blockstrings and really slow normals, especially since his blockstrings are often spaced too far away for throws, and it's hard for him to gatling into lows or throws fast enough to deal with it anyway. This, obviously, might only be true at the moment, since people are just learning Kagura. In neutral game, he becomes significantly weaker, and his midscreen damage is pretty average (around 1.6-2.2k, I believe) unless he lands a good counterhit, at which point his midscreen damage still goes up to 4k+ without meter. Remember that his 2A isn't a low, but his 5B is. If you get hit by 5B, expect to take a pretty decent midscreen combo. If you get hit by 2A, his combo path gets significantly shorter. 623B and 236C are really useful in this matchup, as are the Sonic Sabres (A/D versions). He has difficulty dealing with zoning, so trying to keep the game at your pace and yourself away from his mixup is pretty straightforward. His jump-ins can pretty much all be stuffed with 623B (or 623C if he gets on top of you somehow), especially since he literally has no aerial special moves. He can choose to do something like drive cancel into a reverse dive away from you to get away from it, but it's pretty much not something he can react to, so he'd have to preemptively choose to do so. Kagura has some fairly slow normals overall, with his only fast ones being very short ranged. He doesn't have very many options at the sorta closer edge of mid-range, but his close-range and far-range are pretty good. Fortunately, 236C exists in that mid-range area. If you see him starting up a fireball, and you're positioned right, you can actually just 214B past it and hit him in the face. In GA mode, you can just 214D it. Justice Phorizer does not beat his fireballs! If he summons one and then blocks your JP, the fireball will continue through the super and hit you. If you're in GA mode, you can of course just teleport out. Some general tips that aren't matchup specific: - if you see Kagura do his 2-hit sword surf move (probably Ryuusenken, his 2D~B, but I'm not completely sure), you can IB the second hit and throw him out of pretty much any followup attack. - if you're doing a blockstring and Kagura stands up, then he can't DP you for a while, because his DP is a charge-down move. - Similarly, Kagura can't wakeup super you if he neutral techs, because his super is a charge-back move, and neutral teching requires that the player let the stick go to neutral.