ComboVid

Who’s up for a SF2 Rainbow Edition match? I believe it’s from a casual set, but i remember Desora was one of the first people to post RE matches. This was the one that attracted the most attention because it ends in a strange freeze glitch at the worst possible moment.

players: HishouUsagi (Honda/Guile/Dhalsim/Sagat) vs Desora (Zangief/Balrog/Honda/Ryu)

observations:
SF2RE Zangief punishes Honda’s whiffed air Sumo Headbutt with j.HP xx Lariat for the dizzy! How cool is that? Then he follows up with air SPD and switches to Balrog to (eventually) start up the dashpunch lockdown. By the way, Balrog is top tier in this game. Not that it matters, since you can switch characters in the middle of a round. Honda outrunning his own Headbutt on foot is pretty funny too. The second round is Sonic Booms. The third round is Dhalsim being not that good at this game. Then the glitch happens and Desora realizes it, so he explores it for a few seconds before getting bored and taking the round.

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When you have a question about fighting a specific character, the best thing to do is search for match videos of top players representing that matchup to see how they approach it. For instance, if you’re an Akuma player and you want to know how to deal with Ryu’s mid-range fireball zoning, search for something like “ssf4 akuma ryu finals” on u2b.

players: ToXY (Akuma-U1) vs Daigo Umehara (Ryu-U1)

observations:
ToXY’s general solution is to hang out at 3/4 screen range and use Akuma’s ground and air fireballs to give Ryu a good reason to throw a fireball. Then he punishes it with a Demon Flip, which sets up a whole sequence of offensive mixups. Of course this is risky, but keep in mind that Akuma only has to land one or two of them per round. The rest of the time, your job is to make Ryu comfortable enough to throw those fireballs. He’ll probably stop doing it eventually, as Daigo does in the second match, but that’s when your footsies come into play. If he’s not throwing fireballs, then you get to walk forward again. Unfortunately for ToXY, it turns out that Daigo’s ground game is stronger, so Ryu is able to regain the upper hand in this particular set.

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Have you ever wanted to see R4 Raiden win a Capcom vs SNK 2 tourney? The answer is yes. Well, today is your lucky day! (Minor inconsequential detail: This “tournament” may have taken place in someone’s house. And the participants may or may not have been inebriated.) Enjoy!

players: Desora (K-Raiden-4) vs Daidouraku (A-Dan/Athena/ChunLi-2)

observations:
Look at that Ratio 4 damage at 1:18! That’s without meter against a standard health character! Nicely set up crossup too – guessing that Dan would attempt an empty jump throw. Look at the damage at 1:53!! Again a nice read/reaction after several patient Just Defends. Look at the damage at 2:33!!! He finally landed a gutsy lvl3 super. And i don’t know if it was intentional or not, but that little step forward at 2:49 may have been the difference between Chun Li’s j.D+MK stomp bouncing backward or heading into the corner. “I am Raiden!”

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