Hello everyone,
I’m going to start a series of posts that go over general SF6 techniques that will help you improve your SF6 game. The first technique I will go over is the concept of delayed chained lights/throw to establish pressure in SF6. This will seem like a very basic concept (In fact, it’s present in pretty much every fighting game) but it’s a common technique used by top SF6 players all over the world. Lets begin.
EXAMPLE
The example I will go with is a common Ken confirm combo that leads into strong pressure.
The combo: Ken crLP, sMP sHP xx KK, QCB+K
When Ken immediately dashes twice after this combo, he will be at +5 knockdown advantage. From there, he can immediately go into sLP (Which becomes +1 on block instead of the usual -1 because you’re hitting with the last active frame of sLP) or throw (+5 knockdown advantage means your throw will be meaty enough to beat wake up 4F+ buttons). This seems incredibly strong, right? Well, lets look at what it loses to.
As you can see from the video, this pressure will lose to your opponent immediately waking up with an OD reversal, wake up super, or wake up immediate parry (Parry will lose to throw obviously). Is there a way we can bait out the opponent’s reversals while still continuing pressure? Yes!
DELAYING CHAINED LIGHTS AND THROW
In order to solidify your SF6 pressure while accounting for the most defensive options from your opponent, you want to slightly delay your lights/throw when you have good frame advantage from a knockdown. Lets watch an example:
As you can see, if we slightly delay our light/throw a few frames (We’re at +5 advantage so we have some leeway because the opponent’s fastest move is generally 4F), we can bait our wake up OD reversals, wake up supers, AND wake up immediate parry while still beating delayed wakeup 4F+ buttons and delayed throws. I also show what would “beat” this type of pressure: just immediately waking up with a light/throw (Because the opponent is slightly delaying their attack on your wake up).
This type of “rock paper scissors” pressure is present in pretty much every high level SF6 match. Here is a basic flowchart that should help inform what you want to do on offense:
- Is my opponent the type of opponent that immediately wakes up with a button/throw? Beat their immediate wake up button/throw with a meaty normal/throw.
- Is my opponent the type of opponent that slightly delays their button/throw to block meaty normals and tech throws? Beat their delayed button/throw with your own delayed button/throw. You can also shimmy your opponent by doing a slight walk back to make their delayed button/throw whiff.
- Is my opponent the type of opponent that loves waking up with an OD reversal/super/parry? Bait their reversal options with a delayed button/throw.
- Is my opponent the type of opponent that does delay jump back to block meaty normals and jump away from delayed throws/shimmies? Catch their delayed jump with a delayed button.
The breakdown above doesn’t cover every single type of defensive option from the opponent but the basic idea should be clear: delayed buttons is generally the safest option to go for when pressuring your opponent on wake up. You want to force your opponent to pick the options that “beat” delayed buttons/throws. And once you force them to pick those options, then you counter their counter!
If you’re wondering why high level SF6 players generally pressure with lights, it’s because they’re the fastest normals that will beat out delayed lights (A delayed medium/heavy button will generally lose to defensive delayed lights). Also, lights have the least amount of block stun so you can sneak throws after a blocked light. Finally, blocked light attacks are generally negative on block but you can chain light attacks from a blocked light attack to beat out opponents that try to take their turn back (Once the opponent blocks 2-3 chained light attacks, they will be pushed out to a relatively safe spacing).
Look out for more general SF6 tips coming soon!
DaFeetLee's Dojo 