Eileen VS Sarah discussion

I think I've been scratching my head long enough here, trying to come up with ways to tackle this matchup by myself, so I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about it. How do you usually fare when you play against Sarah? Do you find yourself dominating, struggling, or is it about even for you?

I have trouble getting in or keeping pressure on her because of her somersault kick. I know it's heavily punishable on guard, but it seems to interrupt a lot of my attacks, so I'm not really sure what's even safe against her. What are some of the attacks I should probably focus on keeping in my arsenal when fighting her next time? What attacks should I not bother with?

Any help with this matchup would be much appreciated! I always seem to get thrashed by her unless I can take the initiative. I figure there must be options I have from a defensive position which can help me turn the match in my favor.

EDIT: Oh and any notable Eileen VS Sarah videos you can think of that you have seen before which may be able to help, please feel free to share them! Thanks!

 

I wouldn't worry so much about the specific attacks sarah was using on you but the basics. Where you getting hit from crouching, thrown a lot, punished for evading the wrong direction, attacking from disadvantage too much? If the somersault kick was hitting you a lot then you were probably attacking from disadvantage or using too slow an attack from minor advantage, or throwing too much.

If you had a video of you fighting it'd be easier, or some more specific situations you're struggling with. Like I did this and he did that and I got beat what do I do or what happened?

 

Ah, you're right. I suppose I should have been more specific. Well, I realized that Sarah has enough time to perform the somersault kick after guarding a simple PPP string.

So, I decided to try PPP, then follow up with QCB+P. Turns out, the QCB+P comes out fast enough to interrupt the somersault kick. Just when I thought I shut it out, she just starts crouching the QCB+P and getting low hits on me.

So much for using QCB+P any more. There were also "stance shenanigans" I couldn't get through where she seems to switch between mid to low a lot. I tried getting an elbow in, but that didn't work. I tried 2P, still didn't work. I also tried a simple neutral P, no good.

I have the same problem with Brad, honestly. Once they start that, I can't seem to get out of it. Normally, I can just throw out an elbow to interrupt them and that doesn't really seem like a bad idea, but between Sarah and Brad's constant offense that doesn't look like it has an opening anywhere, it's hard to turn things around once that starts.

Back to Sarah though... I think the stance itself seems to really screw with my stuff a lot. Just when I think I've got her, she will backflip out of reach or I'll eat a somersault kick out of nowhere when I don't think she has enough time to execute something like that.

The whole matchup just feels so inconsistent for me. If I get in and start pressuring, I don't have much of a problem from that point on. However, if I get pressured or I can't find an opening, I usually end up losing because I can never seem to interrupt her with anything.

Anyway, I don't know how helpful this will be with explaining my predicament, but any help would be much appreciated regardless.

 

Well on hit you're negative after PPP so that's the 1st problem. You have to block after that string hits or use a mixup into a cancelation move. Unless that last hit is a counter hit, you're at -8 and Sarah has all the time in the world to do what ever she wants to you there and there's jack you can do about it if you're attacking.

Not attacking when you're at negative frames is the 1st step to dealing with characters like brad and sarah that can really punish you for doing that kind of stuff (eileen is a part of that list too). Right now it sounds like the problem you have is your offense is stronger than your opponent's defense, but you're defense is also weaker than your opponents offense. So whoever gets to start their momentum first wins. You just need to block one of those moves, like summersault and punish her with your 46P or dash forward 9K+G for big damage combos.

For the situation where you're using PPP214P. If Sarah blocks that first high no problem, as long as she's not 2Ping you during the 214P you can follow up with the mid K. This is great if they're ducking because the kick is +6 on crouching opponents. Otherwise you're at -1 on normal hit, so you want to make sure they're crouching.

If they're letting you get away with PPP and are 2Ping you after that last P, just use 236P to jump over their low punch into 6P+KPP combo.

 

Tricky has great advice, I don't really see any problems with this match up. Sarah is my main and i've just picked up Eileen as my sub. They both have there have good options, defense, correct reads, and mixups are your best friend.

 

I've always found that, if I'm having problems dealing with a specific character, the best thing to do is try to play as that character for a bit.

All you really have to do is learn the commands for their moves, then just throw yourself into some matches and start spamming the attacks with which you've been have problems. From there, you'll start seeing what your opponents are doing that's beating you. For example, if there's a certain attack from a stance that seems like it's 'zomg sabaki everything and kill me in one hit', you'll start to notice that, each time you try to do it, your opponent is using a strike with X properties (for example, a low sweep, or an elbow-class move), and that your stance thing always loses to that. After that, you just find an ability on Eileen that matches those properties, and you now know how to beat it.

I used to have a lot of problems fighting against Wolf and Kage (for different reasons), but once I had a quick play-around with them, I soon noticed the weaknesses in each of the abilities with which I had previously been struggling. Sure, sometimes it just feels like you're at a disadvantage and you're being pigeon-holed into choosing between two bad choices, but all you need, especially with Eileen, is to gain a small frame advantage, and you're back to making them play your game and you can put them in the same situations they've been forcing upon you.