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.
game: Super Street Fighter IV (Console)
venue: Evo APAC 2010 – Winners Finals
recorded on May 30th, 2010
