Chanchai's Throw Escape Theory

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INTRODUCTION
This article detailing my organized thoughts on Throw Escapes was originally presented in a group chat with some of the Colorado VF players (particularly the KDQ group). This was the second discussion I presented to them on the topic. The recap covers my original advice to their players which is simply to work on the mechanics of throw escaping to build the proper habits of Guard Throw Escape in vulnerable situations and only do it as long as one would normally guard or is vulnerable--but no longer than that.

RECAP (Week 1: Just Get Good At Guard-Throw-Escape When You Would Guard or Are Vulnerable)
I recommended starting off Throw Escapes as purely mechanical and reducing the guess work. This means that you should start with just inputting the throw escape for the opponent’s strongest throw—JUST DENY THEIR STRONGEST THROW. And work on inputting Guard-Throw-Escape anytime you are stuck in recovery (and not buffering your next move), anytime you are really vulnerable, and any time that you would guard, but do not guard longer than normal.

By focusing on just denying their strongest throw, you are working on this mechanically, backed by a solid strategy you do not have to think about. Because the thinking comes later. And today we will talk about the thinking.

I also made the point that IF YOU ARE CERTAIN THAT YOUR OPPONENT WILL THROW (like 90% certain), THEN THROW ESCAPE IS NOT THE BEST OPTION—ATTACKING, SPECIFICALLY LAUNCHING, IS THE BEST OPTION WHEN YOU KNOW YOUR OPPONENT WILL THROW.

Guard-Throw-Escape = Press and hold G; then while holding G, press and hold P+Direction of Opponent’s Throw (direction in terms of forward, back, or neutral).

AFTER MECHANICS - NOW THE THEORY
What I’m going to talk about tonight is not from a guide or a Japanese video. It’s just my ideas and experience and one of many organized ways of looking at your opponent’s throw decisions. I will start with a framework at how to look at it and then I will talk about common strategies you are likely to encounter to help you try to understand either your opponent’s throw pattern better, or at least come up with a plan that will work against what they seem to be doing.

So here is some vocabulary I have developed for opponent’s throw decisions (or non-decisions even), other people might call it other things but these are the names I have given them.

“BIAS”
The opponent’s “Bias” is the throw they are doing the most, it is the main part of their throw strategy (or non-strategy).

Some opponents will mostly do the strongest throw.

Some opponents, especially Jean and Brad players, will do the second best throw direction—in these cases it will be throws that end with 4P+G—because their character’s throw options are so skewed that most of their opponents deny their strongest throw.

Some opponents are seemingly random or it is hard to determine a bias—that is okay, and in these cases I do strongly recommend going back to denying the strongest throw.

Some opponents have super powerful 4P+G and 6P+G throws, generally the heavies but especially Taka, and so there might not be an actual bias—in these cases I recommend you feel it out and maybe even trust your gut a little. But also, if throw direction is a challenge to figure out, maybe just assault predictable throwing—launch them when you know they will throw—that’s still important for all of these, but it is a very great option here if you have an easier time knowing when they will throw as opposed to what throw they will do.

“PIVOT”
We have established the “Bias” but now it’s good to try to determine what will cause an opponent to Pivot.

The “Pivot” is a threshold for when the opponent will change up their throws—when they will move off the bias or at least toy with the throw decisions. Right now I am not talking about wall/ring out/low health—that’s actually for the next word in our vocabulary.

“Pivot” can be felt out through observing the opponent’s tolerance to things not going their way, indomitable patience, or a devil-may-care attitude in their play.

Your subconscious will probably feel out “Pivot” before you process it consciously. But some people process this very consciously too.

“OVERRIDE”
The “Overrides” are easier to read and so you want to identify what overrides your opponent follows. “Overrides” are options that are situationally so good that your opponent should do it—a throw that will ring out, a throw that causes a wall combo, a throw that will escape wall pressure, or a throw that will kill you immediately are all “overrides.” Sometimes, the threat of the override is so great that you really should just escape the override simply because the risk is too great (like losing by ring out or losing by wall combo).

So you want to identify when throws add to the list of win conditions in the immediate situations. These are the strongest overrides.

Against Kage, you want to do 6P+G throw escape anywhere not in the middle of the ring because you can get rung out. But let’s go less extreme than Kage…

Aoi you want to escape 6P+G anytime you are near the ring out and even the wall. It’s just too good there. Jeffry I believe 4P+G near the wall and near the ring out. Jacky’s 6P+G near the wall leads to a flipkick combo that does huge damage. If your back is to the wall, Lion just does so much more damage with 6P+G than normal.

And finally…. one of the most common overrides, and in this case it is about reading your opponent…. but “does your opponent go for neutral throw when neutral throw is lethal?” This is a big one at level 30+.

The above three concepts: BIAS, PIVOT, OVERRIDE — They assume that the opponent’s objective in the moment is to win. So these are all in good faith.

It is also possible that there’s another motivation: “WHIMSY”

When your opponent has an objective that is not winning—such as wanting to work on something, or having more fun…. Then you should consider “WHIMSY” and this should help guide you to reading not just throws, but also your general strategy.

I advise you do not take “WHIMSY” personally. It is still legit, and it is still a very powerful way of playing in a game like VF. So process it objectively and if you learn to recognize it, you can counter it.

Similarly, there is another motivation you should over time learn to recognize: “KILL MODE”

Recognizing or predicting the switch to kill mode will especially help you with strong players. In fact, if you get good at recognizing or predicting it, and you develop countermeasures for kill mode, you will become strong against very confident (or very desperate) players!

Some players that go into KILL MODE will focus just simply on winning every situation… so they might do more neutral throw where they didn’t before. Some players decide to play sharper but with the strongest throws. You’ll have to figure it out, but developing a sixth sense for kill mode is a valuable skill in this game.

Also, a lot of decisions in KILL MODE are based on what has already been happening in the match. Sometimes, the person who suddenly goes kill mode is simply flipping the type of decisions they were making earlier.

I will give an example of a very strong player and a common situation you might find with them. Tricky is incredibly strong, stronger than many people want to give credit for. That said, Tricky likes to tinker and experiment to learn the opponent and of course further her mastery of the game. But if you put Tricky in a position where they believe they might actually lose the set, they will go into Kill Mode. Predicting the Kill Mode and having a plan for it is very powerful against Tricky if their Tinkering mode was more whimsical or assessed your skill to be lower a certain amount. That said, once you earn enough respect from Tricky, she will likely be in kill mode most of the match unless things went her way for too long at some point. This example is true for a lot of strong players—I found myself in identical positions against RyozoKawasaki for example.

COMMON THROW STRATEGIES (To Help You To Eventually Get To Yomi/Reading)
Okay, so let’s go over common throw strategies so that it’ll be easier to spot the BIAS and then make it easier to feel out the PIVOT and still remember the OVERRIDES.

These strategies and my suggestions on how to deal with them should help you improve in the decision making and understanding effective paths your opponent will take and effective options for them. My hope is that as you get better at identifying these strategies and your best options, the throw game between you and the opponent will become more about yomi than the playbook. But I believe the playbook will help get you there soon!

Throw Strategy: STRONGEST FIRST
Because this strategy seems obvious, many over-thinking players actually undervalue it but it’s still one of the strongest throw strategies because the information you receive, as the thrower, is high quality.

Prioritize doing the strongest throw you have. That way, if the opponent is not escaping it, you know AND you get the best benefit in damage/advantage. And if the opponent is escaping it, you know.

This strategy should pivot sooner, because it will become strong again when throws are mixing up again. If anything, this strategy should basically pivot into the “SECOND BEST” Strategy, but be ready to go back to using the strongest (or pivot to FRONT OR BACK) once the opponent shows they will escape the second best throw.

Fighting Against: STRONGEST FIRST
When you fight against this strategy, then denying the strongest throw is incredibly strong overall and if you stubbornly stick to denying the strongest throw but also handle the overrides, you should be in good shape.

If the opponent starts mixing up a lot, evaluate whether you are guessing throws or KNOWING WHEN THEY WILL THROW, because if you know when they will throw, start launching the throw attempts.

Also, if they are clearly locking themselves into the Pivot, then by all means escape the second best throw like once or twice and then go back to denying the strongest throw.

Throw Strategy: SECOND BEST
SECOND BEST is basically the Jean/Brad strategy of using the weaker throw direction because everyone keeps denying the best throws.

That said, also consider that this strategy pairs well with going for CATCH THROWS.

Some opponents don’t pivot from SECOND BEST, but they should! But you need to determine whether or not the opponent pivots on this strategy.

IMO, the thrower should SWITCH TO STRONGEST ONCE SECOND BEST IS ESCAPED ONCE OR TWICE.

The fact is, if the opponent is escaping the second best throw, that means strongest throw is a good option.

Fighting Against: SECOND BEST
I actually think the strategy for second best is pretty simple: get a successful throw escape once or twice and then switch to denying the strongest throw + minding overrides.

That said, the strategy is more complicated the more POWERFUL + BALANCED the opponent’s throw options are. It’s possible that you fight a Taka or Wolf that is doing SECOND BEST and so your throw escape accuracy is important. But in these cases, reducing their throw situations and using abare (attacking from disadvantage, trying to attack their throw) is going to help you manage your throw escape strategy and manage the risk reward.

Throw Strategy: NEUTRAL
Do not scoff at this strategy, it’s actually pretty good! NEUTRAL is a simple strategy, it focuses heavily on doing neutral throw because most people will not escape neutral throw. This does actually make the opponent’s mixup stronger, it leads to throws succeeding a lot more, and the PIVOT becomes all the more important and scary!

Fighting Against: NEUTRAL
This is going to be up to you. The Neutral Throw is still lower damage, but it adds up. If the okizeme from neutral throw is powerful though, then you need to take it more seriously.

If it is clear the opponent is using the neutral strategy, then you should escape some of these neutral throws but try to contain the overrides and be patient.

What about abare? This is tricky…. but I would say that if your opponent is using the neutral strategy, then your defensive option selects like Guard-Throw-Escape and Evade-Guard-Throw-Escape are still your friends simply because they’ve shrunk the reward on their throws and will probably have to rely more on the reward being from their attacks—therefore guarding and evading have become more valuable for you.

In my experience, people who use the NEUTRAL strategy have a high threshold for pivot. They will probably be escaped like 3 or 4 times before they switch, though I personally think they should switch and switch back pretty quickly after 1 or 2.

Throw Strategy: FRONT OR BACK
This is basically the Taka strategy, or even the Wolf strategy. The opponent tries to keep the two choices between front and back to be as seemingly random as possible.

This is of course a very powerful strategy and one might say it’s the proper way to play those character’s throw games.

Fighting Against: FRONT OR BACK
Denying Strong is valid, but you are going to eat a lot of damage if you end up in a lot of throw situations. Ultimately, if your opponent is good at this, you want to minimize throw as an option and focus on reading when they like to throw.

You will want to develop your reading skills and your anti-throwing skills to deal with this.

Definitely observe the OVERRIDES, those are usually the easiest reads to determine if your opponent goes for them or not, but you should also always protect yourself from lethal because as long as you don’t lose the round, you can still win it (sounds so dumb, but makes so much sense in this context).

Anti-Throwing skills is using spacing and attacks and fuzzy guard to make yourself hard to throw. Characters that are good at FRONT OR BACK have a high reward on their throws, so you naturally have to minimize the throw opportunities they have and you have to focus on developing your yomi (ability to read the opponent) for the situations where you are vulnerable to throw.

Throw Strategy: RANDOM
Some players really do go RANDOM and players can go in and out of this strategy. There’s not much more that can be said about it.

Fighting Against: RANDOM
I personally believe the strategy against random is pretty simple. DENY THE STRONGEST. DENY THE OVERRIDES. Don’t even worry about Pivot, BUT DO LOOK FOR HABIT. And if their character is strong at BACK AND FORTH, then minimize the throw opportunities as explained in ANTI-THROWING in the previous section.

Throw Strategy: (SITUATIONAL) IMPULSE
Some players are guided either by a built-in blueprint or situational impulse. When you can grasp this about an opponent, you will be well on your path to yomi—reading your opponent. You can think of this blueprint as “Pure Override.”

In cases like this, which throw your opponent does is heavily driven (or overriden) by small details in the situation, such as after their forward dash, after their crouch dash, after specific setups, it could be the sequence, and of course the usual overrides.

On how to Fight Against this “Strategy” I will talk about some of the common factors/overrides that will help you read/track what’s going on with your opponent’s throw decisions. If the impulse is so strong that the opponent is always throwing instead of mixing up attack/throw in these situations, then you should focus on using attack to punish their throw. However, if they are still mixing up but the throw option is impulsively driven, then improve your defense by using the appropriate throw escape. Here are some common impulse drivers:

• After The Thrower Does Forward Dash - ex. Some Jacky players like to do Dash —> 64p+G.
• After The Thrower Does Crouch Dash - ex. Characters like Lion/Aoi/Pai have 2_6P+G and might do it more after crouch dash.
• When The Thrower Has Nitaku - ex. A Favorite Throw When Thrower is at +6 ~ +9
• At Specific Thrower Advantage (in Frames) - ex. An Opponent Who Favors Certain Throws at +8
• Favorite Flowcharts/Setups - In both Offline and Online you will find opponents who have their favorite flowcharts and in many cases, their throw choices are predictable in these flowcharts. ex. A favorite throw after P(G) Counter Hits.
• Okizeme - Some opponents like to throw a waking up opponent and sometimes their throw direction choice is predictable.

Throw Strategy: YOMI
So the hardest of all, the ideal, some players simply throw based on their YOMI—on their ability to read you.

This happens at higher level a lot, and sometimes you have to recognize that you are the determining factor in their throw decisions. Or more specifically, your habits.

For example, a lot of players now know that I have a habit of escaping 6P+G by default—though this isn’t always true, it is mostly true. At the very least, in a match, I have a throw escape bias. And so that is the most effective throw strategy against me, identify my throw escape bias.

Fighting Against: YOMI
Well.. the good thing about a game based on yomi is…. you can attack an opponent’s yomi. You can attack their reads. I alluded to it when I talked about Kill Mode. It’s the same concept.

Just understand that anytime the opponent thinks they have a strong read on you, they are already kind of baited into a trap if they don’t prepare for your mixup.

Also, an opponent who is throwing on YOMI is also probably now more predictable about when they will try to throw you. If you have that figured out, you have great opportunities for launchers.

When it really is YOMI, then you are in a dance. And you can try to lead that dance.

When the battle is one of yomi, then a lot of answers are going to lie in the risk/reward for both players. Knowledge will give you the best strategy.

And finally… WHEN IT IS A BATTLE OF YOMI, TACTICS BECOME VERY POWERFUL.

Hope you enjoyed all this ^_^

-Chanchai