=:: For Brad players; Killing of the 2p myth. ::=

You often hear the "Oh Brads so weak against 2p. If you do 2p you'll win against all slips and ducks, that's why he's consided so weak in Japan" However,.. if you look at Japanese players playing Brad (yes clips are rare but they do exist); you hardly see him getting more 2p's against him then the next character. Now why is that?

As a Brad player you need to learn how to use cansels and delays. I'll even go so far as to say that if you don't use 's alot when playing Brad you're playing him in a bad way. Of cource you'll always get countered if you do (gaurded)>ducking every, freakin time.

It's the same with every pattern in the game; do it alot and you get countered. Hard. Simple as that. The slips / ducks are not some get out of jail for free cards.

Second of all (and yes this is basic), you can slip when you're in an advantage from gaurding the opponent aswell (but don't always do the punch etc but G cancel and mix it up with throws and what not).

Imo alot of people just think "Oh I need a hit to go into ducking / slipping options" but neglect the fact that you can do it after gaurding your opponents moves aswell. As a pure bonus, you'll kill of evaders greatly with the SRP / SRL so if your opponent is a evade whore go for it (and remember to mix up etc more).

Now, the ducking and slipping can sometimes work for you and lets start by proving the "Oh you can 2p everything he has" myth wrong with the use of a thing that's probably not commonly known; the delay factor of the slips.

Go into trainingmode, put the computer on gaurd all and counter with and then try doing >SL.
Oops. Your ass got CH'ed. Now learn to do it with a delay (yes delay). Do >(delay)SL. You'll win against the done immideatly against you on a gaurded elbow with the SL's propterties against the but only if you delay your SL for a tiny sec. That even though you're -6 from the being gaurded.

Not only can you delay the slipping sometimes abit when it's a pattern (as in >SR/SL above) but you can also delay the punch / etc itself. If you intend to be mixing up SR/SL fakeouts > throws you need to mix them in with maximal delayed SRP/SLP's from the slips otherwise you can get 'ed easily on pure reaction.

Now lets start with some G cansel options as I said you needed to mix it up and that I've already ranted about G cancels.

>Evade>+: Remember when I said cancels are important? If you haven't done a cancel here Brad will simply go into a slip instead of evading which isn't the desired results.

If you evade even an elbow against your blocked elbow the + knockdown is garanteed. If the opponent does a move in which he recovers crouching you should do +> instead. This works exactly similar in another situation which is >evade.
You shouldn't, either, go into say ducking always from but mix it up with cancels. can actually be used as a "safe" launcher (not TC) if used in this manner and since it's mid it's great.

<font color="white">Backdash punishing</font>

Common situations after you can backdash punish a against you is after your own (hit or gaurd), SL gaurded (you're only -1), Blocked (range dependent it seems), and probably more. If you're asking why anyone would want to backdash from a hit the answer is 1) It looks nice if done correctly and 2) The two probably most common things to do for an opponent who gets hit by a is back or evade. This will win against both as after you've backdashed you can get them in their failed evade (mostly with +,).

Train these situations up in trainingmode (comp gaurdall > counter with ) as the timing needs to be thought for many. First of all, you need to realize that you should never take a full backstep but as minimal as you can to avoid the before counterattacking yourself. These things should be done fast.

+,: Garanteed when the misses you (he can not block). Easy to hitscan if first hits and long range makes this the probably best standard use.
Hits evaders and so on if you do this after a hit aswell which has been said unlike most things (but then again if you have good reactions you can + fuck evaders).

: You really need a minimal backdash in order for the to hit so go practice. (gaurded)> is pretty strong imo if you have fast reactions and will lead to many "wtf?!"'s from your opponent as there's barely any animation explaing why their missed and you could do a double elbow. Doesn't work if you do the elbow to way up close so should be done only when your elbow just reaches your opponent. Garanteed otherwise if the opponent tries to or elbow you after gaurding your elbow. Easier to do against a gaurded / etc ofc.

+: Very strong to do after your has been gaurded. Will be garanteed against people trying to elbow you (not normal elbows) or after gaurding your . Once again, train it in the training mode.

: The risky one. If the opponent tried to do a elbow on you after blocking for example your and you do this quickly; congratulations, it will connect garanteed (he cannot recover fast enough to gaurd it). If he did something like a he can though.

<font color="white">Against a greatly anticipated 2p (if you can play it cool). </font>

If you greatly anticipate a there are some other tools you can use. The nicest by far is simply to choose to realease your gaurdbutton (the will miss if you stand still) and then do +> and punish them hard. It's a pretty wierd timing to do so but when you learn to do so it's sweet. Once again, practice this in training against a comp on gaurd all and you'll notice that he can not gaurd your + combo launcher if you choose not to gaurd his with the proper timing. Of cource you can also do things like and +, in this situation but they all fade in comparision to the dmg you will get from doing the + launcher.

<font color="white">Other notes </font>

If your opponent is a whore, remember to mix up in your poking. Specially is he can duck on reaction. Although your teoreticly just +1 after MC a throw after is a vaild option as you still have the knee to threathen with.

You're +1 when someone gaurds your standing jab meaning (gaurded) > SL is a pretty nice pattern once in a while against someone who tries to you in this situation. Mix up with gaurded > throw. , , > + (against someone who tries reverse nitaku against you) and lots of other things. Adapt like teh borg ^__^

After is gaurded it's very valid to backdash and punish as Brads pushes the opponent back in itself.

on normal hit gives you +1 so SL and mixups are valid at this point. Ever thought about evade attacking with ? You should. It's 40dmg on normalhit (22+18) and you retain the initivative (you'll be suprised how often >throw works like this).

<font color="white"> Ending notes </font> ; of course you would have to be insane not to love him getting a "safe" way of going into ducking (so he doesn't need to be in a advantage) like the sabaki move he gets in FT. It's a great boost, but he isn't broken / without tools to deal with 's (mostly thanks to VF's flexible engine) as many seem to believe and that's why this post was made. He'll be a beast in FT (along with Jeff) though for sure imo.

/KiwE (Rant mode off)

 

Great post man, glad to see players posting strats.

 

Yeah. Thx for this ,Kiwie. Sharing is caring, and the post cotains good infor.

Much appreciated.

-maddy-

 

Yeah, I hate that cause I play quit alot against Aoi with Nybec. I know you play alot against an Aoi player aswell so you're probably not to happy about it either ^__^

Actually to slip against Aoi's it's abit more advanced then:

[ QUOTE ]
Against Aoi, he can only slip in one direction to avoid her LP. That is in the direction of her LP, which is kinda weird as it'd make more sense if it was the other direction, i.e. away from the LP, but whatever.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can never SR her , it has to be SL so it's pretty much open stance specific (as you need the SL to be towards her hand). A fun thing that I recently discovered though is that if you anticipate the + or + (that Aoi's like to whore after + & + etc against Aki's and Brads alot) and you evade it - launcher is garanteed as a mC. Beats the hell out of blocking it and getting that TC situation on her as it equals 78dmg (>>+>+) and great Oki. Aoi doesn't have great tools against evaders either imo (launchers are MC etc). If you evade a harder to combo characters (HW's and so on that float poorly) big move, like say Aki's Dblplm, the SR from the evade is a nice tool of choice (and you don't even need to watch stance for the combo).

/KiwE

 

Good post, "The Columbus Dispatch rates this thread a 4.5 out of 5 only for lack of a KTD post............ wait
5 it is, good strats, solid advice and a suprise appearence by Myke near the end, bravo"

 

True true. Tested it and he can SR her aswell in the hand direction but pretty harshly rangedependent (when doing (gaurded)>SR). But it's certainly not as framedependent (nani?). You can be all they way up close and do >SR or >SR and avoid the easily (something you can definatly not when SL at that framediss). Wtf? You can even do + (gaurded) > SR the with proper distance pretty easily. This is big news to me

/KiwE

 

Kiwe, I completely agree on your point about Brad's "weakness" against the LP. We can't really complain about a LP being able to stop slipping attacks from a blocked attack (e.g. elbow), because that situation is common to all characters.

To slip is to be offensive. Yes, part of that offense may be to dodge attacks, but the nature of slipping is offensive and not defensive.

It's exactly the same for any other character. If you get your elbow blocked and try to can another attack, most attacks will get stopped by a simple LP. It's no different to other characters, though some characters have better ways to deal with this than others; I'm not convinced that Brad is at any significant disadvantage currently. The LP sabaki in FT will certainly help!

 

A question: is one of SL or SR a good option after Brad gets a MC (like LP (MC) ---> SL -> P)? I mean, both of them (SL and SR to P) give you a combo if the opponent evades (since the time it takes to actually move will guarantee that the opponent does a failed evade), and if it dodges LP then the opponent are really in trouble. It seems like a really nasty situation for the opponent... since both evade and LP will be killed by one single move. Am I missing something here?

 

Nope, that's true. Alot harder to do ingame then it sounds on paper though. If they have slow reactions (and most ppl do that's why MC>throw works so well) you need to delay your slip and so on to avoid the often. Delaying the SL (but not the slip) is also good (in order to catch them in the failed evade). Works much better with SL for natural reasons. Lots of factors (unlike a Jerky MC>+ which will kill the 2p back and evader all the same) to consider, stance aswell.

/KiwE