Copying Other People's Playstyles Only Goes So Far 

2d RC 2d RC go crazy

@@NemSumeragi That's that moment when the opponent is like, "wait, he just spent all his bar?!" where the mental guard break happens and everything becomes unblockable.

Yeah, but "partying" IS how you play I-NO. :3

Yup, Elmapuddy's vid "You should AWP like Device, not s1mple" is this exactly

As long as you're AWPing like someone with a 1 in their name, that's the important part

Bruh. Never thought I would see S1mple name in a sajam comment section but here we are

@@valkyrieKNIGH7 I may be wrong but I remember watching sajam commenting about s1mple in a vid

@@Gabrol I wouldn't be surprised. He watches other esports scenes

i once saw a World's that was taken down by an $70 Basic Blue deck. That was amazing! Up against a *horrific* draw dependent "one hit wins" meta too. We thought it was gonna' be ugly and it was, just not the way we thought! You gotta' love those kind of Tournaments! :D

Grounded PB, especially kara PB is necessary for putting the fear of god in your opponent as pot and I would encourage you to continue working on that even if you recognize that you have a better success rate with jump PB right now. Even if your kara pot buster execution is fantastic and you are just choosing to empty jump, recognize that you need to work deceptive grounded pot buster in your game as a key tool, even if the exact way you use that tool isn't identical to FAB.

@@semantik95 yeah I can grounded PB just fine and often make good use of it in a scramble and as a wake up tool to deal with rushdown characters trying to bulldog (dash push me into the corner after a knockdown) the issue is most players kind of know the grounded mix options for pb, while conditioning them to fear jS or jHS and then tossing in grabs is still effective on floor 8 and 9 where I'm usually playing.

For reference, I'm a celestial player with goldlewis and testament. That said, I don't play much ranked. I play almost every character, and pot is among my top 5 best characters. I'm 100% sure I could get celestial with Pot if I wanted to. I've been a tournament player since about 2010. I will tell you my most common use cases for grounded PB in order of importance and maybe that will help you: 1) After establishing cl.S on your good knockdowns (close slide head, non max range 2D, combo into garuda). Once you establish meaty cl.S, PB or cl.S tick into kPB gets really good because they have to respect cl.S xx 2D. If you convert from cl.S when they are holding up or backdashing into a big combo, you will scare them into getting grabbed. One specific tip for this is that if you slightly delay cl.S, you can catch jump and backdash simultaneously cuz they will run out of invuln frames on backdash so you can convert into 2S for incredible damage (especially if you can do kara giganter). Until you establish scary close slash stuff, people will just belligerently backdash or hold up. 2) kPB after kara garuda. Kara Garuda should be your most common meaty since you don't always get knockdowns good enough for cl.S. Strive gives you 5f of grab invuln on wakeup and after blockstun. The guardcrush from garuda takes away that invuln in addition to removing opponent's ability to YRC so tick setups from garuda are particularly tight and punishing, especially if you establish 2D after blocked garuda. 3) Reversal PB. This is obvious and you said you're already doing it, but there are 3 major specific cases. The first is backdash a grab or a meaty normal in the corner (corner only cuz i know for a fact I'll still be in range to PB). This really screws them up cuz they are usually trying to cancel their meaty normal so when you make it whiff, they will get grabbed even if you are a little late cuz they aren't holding up. The second case is after FD, the opponent will frequently want to microdash in to continue pressure, and if I read that they want to keep pressing after FD, PB works. Also, if you have the hands for it, wakeup HPB RC PB is incredibly nasty and it only costs 50 meter if you do it right. 4) Hammerfall fast RC PB. I'm sure this is obvious and you already know about it, but its so good. Also one specific tip I have is to do out out of strings (blocked 5HS/5S/2D). You have to delay the hammerfall just a hair to make sure they aren't still ungrabbable after the blockstun, but its very effective. 5) kPB after blocked jumpin. The range is so ridiculous that it will work very often since people are used to blocking a normal after jumpin 90% of the time. You have to practice delaying the kpB to wait out the blockstun AND the 5f of grab invuln, but it works. Most important way to make points 1 and 2 actually work for you is getting used to actively recognizing what your good knockdowns are and what your bad knockdowns are so you know when you can get cl.S and when you have to settle for kara garuda. Its hard at first, but if you keep it in mind, you will start to be able to eyeball the different ranges. it will make your Pot much scarier in general. Good luck.

Have to say that's pretty much the same for every character alltough not as obvious that you're doing something wrong. Getting out of bronze is an anti-air minigame.

It doesn't help them with their defense when Karin has no dedicated anti-air without meter. o.o Er, as God intended of course!

Ham bone sounds like a good name for an evolved Hitbox. It beats Cross-Up. There hasn't been a name THAT on the nose since "Objectivism." xD

It takes time to develop your own style through creativity and experimentation. Don't sleep on how much your own creativity and style can help your growth.

It's just a matter of trying things and seeing what works for you... and being careful not to rely on things that only work because of the rank you're in. Style will develop naturally, don't try to force it.

don't think about it. Just keep playing.

@@kevingriffith6011 How is someone supposed to know if something is only working "because of their rank" though? *Especially* if it's a new idea!

@@mikejonesnoreally If you think a potential mixup is good, try it on yourself. Record a bot doing your tactic against you along with a few other similar moves and see if you can respond to it yourself. Some times you'll find that what sounded good on paper just isn't great in practice. Sometimes the only way to know is to keep trying it on different people of your rank until it stops working. To give you an example on my main, Blanka: I thought I was really clever in bronze doing command dash -> throw on people in neutral. At about super silver, though, basically everyone was jabbing me out of it, because they had essentially over 30 frames to react to it. You'll want to keep in mind what is reactable (~17-19 frames if they're actively looking for it), and how the tactic works on someone who just blocks, or just mashes. or delay techs. I wish I could explain the whole business without writing a complete novel, but it kind of varies from character to character.

If I know almost exactly what you're going to attack me with due to having an understanting of your character and what's "optimal", than how is that actually an optimal outcome?

@@mikejonesnoreally sorry I didn't understand your question, are you talking about neutral?

@@Gabrol i apologize, what i mean is that if i know what your best stuff is and the angle of it's attack, how is that good in such a counter heavy game? (No the meta isn't counter heavy....YET) If i can get a read on even 50% of your moves, i just pick Baiken and win right? Other characters force RPS, Baiken turns RPS into a single question: "Are you gonna' do it or not?"

@@mikejonesnoreally I'm not sure I'm understanding your point yet, or what does that have to do with my original message. But afaik you can't counter everything with a single action, even when baiken's parry comes to play you can choose to use a delayed attack, or an attack with a slow startup

@@Gabrol i was specifically responding to your idea that it's best to learn a Character's *optimal* tactics. i though you said it as if it were the *most* important thing, maybe i misunderstood? Also, do you know how long Baiken's parry is active? i didn't say it was the only option, just that it turns RPS into a Coin Flip. i think it's even better than that because it covers all angles except an overhead.