SF4 Notes: VS BEA(Rufus)

Here is the beginning of my post.

And here is the rest of it.

Today I played vs Bea(Probably the best Rufus). There is 9 Rufus's at the Nationals this coming Sunday, so playing vs the best Rufus, is gonna serve me well.

I still think because of the Bison factor(he doesn't do much damage), Rufus has advantage over Bison. It is probably 6:4 in Rufus's favor. Rufus sometimes(but not all the time) has to put in some work to get in, but Rufus can make all his effort worth it. damaging combos that are safe on block and the ability to combo an ultra　ちょう　やばい。

Today I played about 30 games exclusively versus Bea. My numbers may be off but the score was something like.

BEA 4 wins Kim 1 win
BEA 8 wins Kim 1 win
BEA 5 wins Kim 1 win
BEA 1 win KIM 2 WINS BABY
Bea 5 wins Kim Dead...

To save face, a huge percentage of the games he won, went to the last round of a 3/5 round game.

But yeah, whatever, I'm putting in the work to do well. Now it's just all about knowing counters, staying mentally solid, and good old fashioned luck.

I guess I wasn't feeling it too much, but now I'm feeling the intense pressure I put on myself when there's the biggest tournament of the year. This isn't CvS2, and I don't know the game inside out, so I feel a bit anxious about what to expect.

I decided to use Mouko's suggestion and ask other players what is the number 1 thing they hate about facing a bison player.

Bea's answer was 1) stand roundhouse and 2) scissor kick.

He said Rufus has to escape out of scissor kick by doing EX crazy kick, he has no other answer. I don't know how true that statement is, but there could be some truth to it. From my experience, scissors can be stopped with certain normals that are stuck out ahead of time. I'm sure someone is going to disagree with something I mention. But to them I'll say HOW MANY NATIONAL TOURNAMENTS HAVE YOU QUALIFIED FOR? Respect that.

Anyway, now onto the notes:

Vs Rufus

1.) EX crazy kick is still the most deadly move to watch out for in that matchup. Bea was mixing it up and I don't have any answer that beats all the options Rufus can do afterwards.

I know if you block all of them he is not safe, but there's not one counter I can think of that I can safely and mindlessly do. BUT I am thinking that I can block the crazy kick, then mash on low short and always cancel it to scissors. when I do that motion, I immediatly press focus and if he chooses to do the overhead stomp move, I can absorb that hit and do something damaging.

Bison's Ultra has missed everytime I did it. now yes, I know you can do it to punish the ex crazy kick. but today, no matter if I did it late or as a reversal, shit wasn't hitting. ideas or knowledge is welcomed.

2.) Rufus is too deadly upclose, the notion of "YO MAN JUST NEVER LET HIM GET NEAR YOU", I'll bet 8000 Hot dollars you never played against the best Rufus. At high level play anyway, you gotta divert from your overall gameplan sometimes. Cause th opponent is always challenging you. Even though in the overall scheme of things, attacking with bison isn't worth it if the opponent can do more damage easier and safely, you gotta do random attacks and also attack to stop him from doing whatever he wants. Even though I'm proud of my countering skill, I can't win all my games by doing that.

Rufus can punish a whiffed low short and tech throw my doing an immediate off the ground dive kick after making you blocking a dive kick.

NOW, this is something I will hopefully find the meaning to later. Bea said, instead of tech throwing with down/back and jab+short, instead I should use down/back + jab,+short+STRONG PUNCH.

Ok, so I don't know why I should do that instead but, I am thinking of two reasons why it might be useful.

- because of the magical property of bison's low strong according to scrubby dan's post. Yeah no idea if it's true.

-and because that you can tech throw and at the same time low strong will hit rufus out of the air. Again, just speculating.

3.) After baiting a EX crazy kick, I usually jump back and can land a full jump in combo. however two things are also likely to happen.

- I hit him only out of the air and thus can't land a real damaging counter

- he mashes on the flash kick ender after the EX crazy kick and it trades with my jump back attack. good shit. again ideas anyone?

Next opponent: MULDER's ZANGIEF on Thursday!