Hard Counter to ECD & EDC

Beating ECD when you have "adv." By hard counter I mean if they ECD there is no way to get out of this other than to just not ECD to begin with. Also note that they will be in evade jail (tricky jail, yeah I'm still gonna call it that) so strings becomes very powerful here.

Common situation if you stop your strings to do mixups. You scared your opponent not to press buttons but now what? They can ECD to duck your throws or block your mids, unless you use this tech.

Note that if you are positive frames they’ll get an evade regardless of what attack you do.
All frames are from the attackers point of view:
0 adv: 12f-16f exe mids/lows
-1 dis: 12f-15f exe mids/lows
-2 dis: 12f – 14f exe mid/lows
-3 dis: 12f – 13f exe mid/lows
-4 dis: 12f mid/lows

Beating EDC 866G
0 adv: 11-12f exe mid, high
-1 dis: 12f exe mid/high

 

Your opponent would want to perform ECD in situations like jacky's 1P+KP string as it will allow you to evade followups, crouch dash under people who stop the string and decide to throw, and give you enough time to visually confirm if you need to press 2 to block a low sweep i.e. jacky's 1K+G. So it's basically useful for characters that have strings that put them at negative frames on hit/guard and have followups that are strong enough to discourage your opponent from attacking after blocking the first hit.

ECD can really blow up strings, and except for a few characters like eileen and jean, there isn't much you can do about it outside using this tech. This tech is only useful if someone is ECDing you a lot during your strings.

Like for Kage, if you hit with 6P I might be afraid of the mixups you have after NH so I'll ECD hoping to defend against his cancels and junk. With this tech, if you know I'm going to ECD after a NH elbow which is +/-0 you can use a 16 frame mid and hit me before I can guard. I as the defender could choose to attack, but in this situation I have been conditioned not to want to attack which is why I would ECD instead.


Another good example is after Jeans NH 3P which puts him at -1 but with not guaranteed followups on NH, but a mid followup attack that's safe on block. It is unsafe to evades though, so you have every reason not to attack since if he completes the string you will get hit no matter what. For strings the one who initiates the string pretty much always has fake adv. The lowest risk option to deal with strings that are safe on block is to evade them and punish accordingly. The next mixup after that is to do one hit in your string then throw. ECD beats that option as you'll be ducking during the throw animation a la Fuzzy guard. If the defending were to fuzzy normally they would get up too early and stand up just in time for the throw to connect. Your least risk solution to the problem of ECD in this situation is to use a 12-15frame mid/low attack which will hit your opponent in a crouching state.

 

The only time a defender should ECD with "advantage" is when defending mid-mid strings, particularly where the first hit is -5/6 on guard. Any other time there's a better answer (high crush, low crush, low guard, duck and punish). Of course, this is expecting perfect play and reacting properly to all strings.

 

I would evade even a high part of a string if it's too hard to get in there with a solid punish by ducking. Like a Mid, High, Mid string or a Mid, Special High string. Or something like shun 46PPPPP+K which jails you and ends in a super delayable mid.

 

mid-high-mids (Kage 3KPP)should be 2P'd immediately upon guarding the first mid until the opponent baits it. Mid,*high should be ducked and punished. Are there any mid-*high-X strings? I really don't know my strings well enough.

And note, I was talking about ECD, not evade overall.

 

For strings that jail such as the Shun one you mentioned (which are very few in FS), I would consider the final mid like a mid-mid string. It's the same situation: guess mid or throw at the end and Shun is -6 if he stops for the throw.

 

Vanessa and Jacky are first that come to mind with High into Special high's that you can't interrupt even if you duck it. Like Jacky's 4PP comes out so fast you really can't get in there. There are also a lot of reasons to not always 2P even in Mid High strings. Sometimes the pushblock is such that your opponent can easily backdash launch you after the mid if you're automatically 2Ping when you expect the Mid High string to come.

I'm not saying ducking isn't a good #1 thing to shoot for. I'm just saying there is very little reason not to ECD strings that are launch punishable on evade but safe on block. The reward is heavily in your favor here.

 

Evading after Jacky 4P? Every single option is beaten by ducking, even if you can't get a full punish after some of the enders while Jacky has options covering each direction and a full-circ ender too. But let's not get too hung up on that one string.

Here's a Jacky secret not directed to anyone in particular, just general FYI: He has 16 strings where the second hit can be ducked/guarded low. 12 of them can be 2P'd immediately after guarding the first hit.

 

Absolutely evade and punish strings when/if possible and reasonable. But unless the opponent would be -5/6 if they stopped their attack and went for a throw mix-up, you will be better served by doing a normal evade cancel (866) than ECD (833). You can only duck the throw if the opponent was -5/6 when they started it. Otherwise, you either won't duck in time (0 to -4) or you'll stand up into it after the crouch-dash (-8 and worse).

 

I didn't go back and check my findings against throw, but yeah that's an option too in low enough adv I guess. I was looking for ways to stop ECDers without resorting to throwing.

At the end of the day this tech is useful only in certain situations. But in those situations it's powerful.

 

To stop ECDers, either start another string, tricky-jail 'em (^,~) and make 'em guess proper OR enjoy your get-out-of-pressure free card and back off / bait / start another mind-game. (in addition to the various frame-timed attacks you mentioned in OP. I think I sounded more harsh on the idea than I actually am.)

 

The more ways you have to stop something the harder you are to read and more adaptable you can be. I want all those tools, even the super obscure only in a small subset of situations useful tools. Especially those actually.

 

I almost agreed with you until the last part, Tricky. Unless the minutiae is immensely rewarding, it is ultimately meaningless. Top-level players of any game do not win because of their edge-case knowledge. They win because they use high-percentage options with large rewards. Now turning minutiae INTO high-percentage high-reward options is fantastic (Valle CC, for example.)

 

If you don't know the minutiae you never get a chance to make it into a high percentage high reward option. For my char this situation happens a lot and can be pretty annoying, but with this tech some wall setups become a lot easier and more dangerous with her. (no idea what valle CC is)

 

http://sonichurricane.com/articles/sfterms.html#slangvallecc

 

I should add that you can use this tech to beat ECD from from adv too, you will just need to toy around with wasting frames. I'd recommend starting off with 33 or 66 into the +/-0 frame moves listed in my chart.

 

I've been playing around with beating ECD when you have adv (+1 - +9) and find the most reliable method is to use 66 2P. The 66 is to give up your adv so that you can hit someone more easily out of their failed evade. You have a lot of time if you use the 2P, you can also use 16f moves, but you have more strict timing to deal with.

 

And here I was thinking delay throw worked pretty well.

 

That loses to ECD attack. It's a good option, but alone it's a terrible option.