Sie Kensou Match Up Thread

[jinxhand]

Kensou's fireballs should be able to keep up with Takuma's with the exception of Tak's EX fireball, which can trump any fireball war you have with him... Plus his fireballs come out a bit faster than Kensou's, so I wouldn't necessarily start a fireball war per sé...

Keep in mind he can't really AA you if you're up close... He can waste meter to do it (GCCD, Ranbu), but other than that, it's not really worth it... Most Takuma players want to zone just enough to push you in the corner to apply pressure by rushing down shortly after... You are going to want to keep him from building any gap or momentum...

In some cases, backflip can help out by giving him a sense of "false hope", and it might make the Takuma player try to do something assuming he has enough space to either zone or rush... Don't rely too much on the fireball pressure, because again he can snuff it with EX fireball, or either fireball super... It won't hurt if you stayed behind that fireball, just make sure that you don't get a qcf+K blocked, because that means you'll be punished with a db~f+K combo of some sort...

Cross up j.D can trade with rdp+K at the very least... If you're quick enough, you can qcf+K to get out of trouble, assuming Takuma didn't attempt to do a deep j.D, which if that is the case, then rdp+B...

Steer clear of his command grab... That pretty much means he's gonna do a combo that eats up your life-- alot!!!

[dmick1981]

Thanks jinx. Ran into another wall last night against my buddys saiki. Whats the deal with saiki? I lose the fb war and i get locked down in the corner when he throws out fireball super. Cant roll through it or i get dp'd/thrown/comboed. Also kensou vs mai seeing as she has the best damn normals in the game. She just plain out normals me on the ground and in air as she has air throw and what the heck ever that floaty move she has that always crosses me up

[jinxhand]

I don't fight many Saikis out here and when I do it's online, so I can't exactly get good punishes or what not... Yeah you're gonna have to get in inch by inch, and poke to bait something with him I will say that... You'll lose in the air with him, and his fireball game will only be beaten by an EX fireball, which you'd rather keep the meter for GCCD, and to use in combos, because you wanna kill him quick imo...

Mai--- well she's another one I don't know too much of aside from what she's been normally good for in most KOFs: air control... You'll lose to her on that... As for anti-airs that might work against her, you've got rdp+K, cr.C, and sometimes s.D and CD. j.B works as an air to air but some characters out prioritize that altogether... You'll wanna try those out and see which ones work based one where she's at in the air, and what she's doing... If you land a ground move, try to cancel it into a fireball for added pressure... I remember fighting one or two way back in December, and I would try to attack from multiple angles... Bait out those air moves and punish also (I forget which ones specifically-- oh there's her falling moves I think that's air d+B/D [¿?])...

Hope that helps a bit...

[Saitsuofleaves]

With Saiki, there's no reason you should be losing the Fireball war.  As long as you have meter, you have him beat.  There's no reason to save up for GCCD's against him because his rushdown is not that big of a pain in the ass, and any strings he throws almost always are unsafe in some way.  Play patient, make Saiki come to you.  Getting you frustrated is Saiki's gameplan, letting you make the mistakes and falling further into his trap until he can wreck you.  If you play patient, he will come to you and you can thrash him.

Mai is a bit tougher, but manageable.  She doesn't do a ton of damage without burning resources, so you can take a few more risks against her, which you will need since she owns Kensou in footsies and poking.  She's one you'll want to save your meter for GCR's in order to get around Mais that like to poke into specials a lot.  When you get in, make it count, don't get pushed back out.  Also, if Mai has a Neomax loaded up, take into account health values.  If you're at full health, just bait it out or hell, or just force her to do it.  Worst case scenario, you lose 50%, but now she's burned out and has absolutely nothing but her pokes.

[jinxhand]

For the vs Saiki thing, that's all I was saying is meter = win in the fireball game... I honestly don't like to waste meter on that too much, because I prefer to use it on something like EX rekkas into qcf+K for example. I'll do maybe one EX fireball to show Saiki fb game is not gonna work, but not too much...

It's a force of habit, but I personally like to save at least 1 meter for the occassional GCCD if by some reason I slip up in an opportunity to capitalize, and it costs me momentum, primarily because I fight more people that rush than zone...

What are his generally unsafe moves that Saiki players tend to use???

[Saitsuofleaves]

Pretty much all of his specials other than his fireball and his QCB+B spaced perfectly are unsafe.  His Fireball doesn't even do a proper blockstring off of anything but his heavies.  So if Saiki does a string, he'll either do nothing which leaves you back at a close neutral, which is your advantage as he pretty much has to take a gamble with a DP, or end up burning meter on GCCD, or he'll use a special which if it's a Fireball, you can DP or I think even roll the gap, and if it's QCB+B, you get in for free.

It's fine to save for GCCD's, but not against Saiki because there's rarely a time you'll need to do it as Saiki really has to gamble with his rushdown.

[jinxhand]

Yeah, so Athena's j.CD owns like crazy against a bunch of Kensou's moves... Are there points in Athena's normal block strings where I can at least throw a rdp+K in there or possibly a qcf,hcb+A/C??? I like using backflip to rdp+K, but I'm still trying to get the timing down while blocking certain moves and anticipating the next move...

Oh yeah, who here has experience vs Robert???

[Saitsuofleaves]

Honestly, other than her unconventional ones, not really.  Best shot is against her B Phoenix Arrow as Athenas LOVE to press buttons after it.

[Jon Slayton]

Yeah command grab is free after you block either dive kick. I think the B one is -4 and the D one is minus whatever you want lol

One thing about Athena is she usually wants to anti air with air to air. Her jump is very floaty, making it really easy to rdp+B on reaction.

I feel like most matchups where the opponent doesn't have a good tool to deal with kensou's cr.D, Kensou wins pretty easily since I think it might be the furthest reaching sweep in the game. It gets annoying when they have tools like Hwa's CD which goes over lows and has good reach though but really, it's such a good tool anyway, everyone should make it a big part of their poking game.

[Saitsuofleaves]

I think B Phoenix Arrow is like -2, but like I said, Athena WILL push buttons after it.  It's the entire point of even using B Phoenix Arrow half the time.  And yeah, D Phoenix Arrow is minus an eternity, but no good Athena will ever throw that thing out when it has a chance of getting blocked.  Once people see that in her Phoenix Arrows, her rushdown game becomes pretty predictable, however against Kensou she doesn't really need to rush at all considering she owns Kensou in the FB game, and has better pokes, and hell I think her far D might crush lows ala Kyo/Beni which completely muffs Kensou.  Best way to win the matchup is to avoid it entirely, on the Order Select.

And yeah, cr.D is a big part of his poking game as it's really his only good ranged poke.  Cr.B is the closest thing outside of that, and it has the blockstun of a feather.  Kensou will very rarely be winning any poking wars, and the ones that he does, usually means the matchup can be a breeze.  For example, Maxima's an easy enough matchup mostly thanks to the ease of zoning him (though he can at least cr.C our FBs) and the fact that he has the shins of a P.O.W.

[jinxhand]

Yeah avoiding that matchup altogether seemed to work, even though I try so hard to avoid having to switch my team up because in my gut, I feel like he can still beat her out. Oddly enough, I felt Mature worked better against Athena, but that's another topic altogether...

I always though that Kim's d.D was slightly longer than Kensou's d.D... It was like that in the previous KOFs if I recall...

[milesw]

Pretty much all of his specials other than his fireball and his QCB+B spaced perfectly are unsafe.  His Fireball doesn't even do a proper blockstring off of anything but his heavies. 

I found that very useful saitsu
So i investigated further...

I have compiled a list of fraudulent fireball blockstring characters lol
all of these moves can be rolled through and punished/rdped/ ex rdped/NMed through
kensou(sweep xx)
kula(st.b/st.C xx)
beni( st.C xx)
saiki(st.C xx)
joe (st.a>f.b> xx) (not from st.C)
mature( lol)
duo lon( lol)

will refine more later. afaik those are the normals they love to use to cancel into fireball and exert pressure.

As for everyone else. You have to block or guard cancel roll through em.

[jinxhand]

Yeah command grab is free after you block either dive kick. I think the B one is -4 and the D one is minus whatever you want lol

Speaking of dive kicks, is there a chance to punish Yuri's dive kick???

Pretty much all of his specials other than his fireball and his QCB+B spaced perfectly are unsafe.  His Fireball doesn't even do a proper blockstring off of anything but his heavies. 

I found that very useful saitsu
So i investigated further...

I have compiled a list of fraudulent fireball blockstring characters lol
all of these moves can be rolled through and punished/rdped/ ex rdped/NMed through
kensou(sweep xx)
kula(st.b/st.C xx)
beni( st.C xx)
saiki(st.C xx)
joe (st.a>f.b> xx) (not from st.C)
mature( lol)
duo lon( lol)

will refine more later. afaik those are the normals they love to use to cancel into fireball and exert pressure.

As for everyone else. You have to block or guard cancel roll through em.

Good shit!!! Honestly, Mature shouldn't even be thinking about using fireballs up close like that unless it's an EX Ebony Tears, and if there is a chance to do some heavy mixups and cross ups while blocking... Even that in itself is a risk I wouldn't wanna take, unless the character is techrolling from a knockdown, and I'm shooting the projectile then at a safe "EX rdp+K free" range...

On Kensou vs Kensou, I see you have his cr.D xx fireball listed. How risky would cr.D xx backflip xx fireball be???

[Sharnt]

Speaking of dive kicks, is there a chance to punish Yuri's dive kick???

She is always + in guard (Well if she doesn't use it too high), so you can only "punish" it by a break CD in guard.

[jinxhand]

She is always + in guard (Well if she doesn't use it too high), so you can only "punish" it by a break CD in guard.

Word... It seemed that way with her being in + on block, but for some reason I assumed that Kensou's super might work by some sort of anamoly...