Dorion had a level-up session at his house tonight, aimed towards preparing a “Team AZ” consisting  of him, Mr. SNK, and Juicebox for the House of Cicada tournament in California pretty soon.  It was kind of cool to overhear bits of their conversation, about Combofiend’s playstyle or Alex Valle’s or how Sabre played Justin Wong while he was just a Marvel player.  As I am currently, I’m simply an SRK member who watches streams, so these players are borderline celebrities to me, and to hear them talked about in such a casual fashion shows how distanced I am from the community.

The mentality of the AZ Scene, however, is exactly the opposite of what SRK is.  Everyone here is really welcoming as well as extremely supportive of my recent revelation and new desire to improve, and to quote Louie, “If someone’s going to show the initiative, it’s worth helping them out.”

Anyway, I spent a good deal of time playing with Reece (Dictator), Louie (Blanka), and Alan (Guile) tonight.  Mostly Louie, who was kind enough to really just walk through my game style and watch my games with Alan and pick apart the many imperfections.  Afterwards I played several other games, but I also had a talk with Zaine prior to leaving about more of the Viper-specific stuff that I can do.

Louie

• Don’t jump so much, especially neutral jumping.  While it may work against online people whose reactions are delayed due to inexperience or lag, I’ll be punished fairly often for jumping straight up like a moron.
• Don’t be afraid to backdash on wakeup.  It breaks a lot of Louie’s okizeme options.
• Additionally, don’t be afraid to use a backdash as a BAIT.  This really helped me in a fight against Alan where I saw the flash kick coming.  It’s a much more efficient bait rather than just walking up and crouch-blocking, which puts me at risk of getting thrown.
• Moving around a lot can be good for instilling a sense of random in your opponent, but in reality it’s in your control.  Doing random shit for no reason gets your opponent to do a double-take and gives me that split second to capitalize on it.
• Momentum is key.  I shouldn’t get flustered when I miss a combo and flail around in hopes of compensating for it somehow.  Have a contingency plan for when my shit breaks and move forward from there.
• Momentum, when against me, should not fluster me either.  Learn how to both defend properly and keep an eye out for punishing opportunities.  I missed punishing a Blanka ball with a reversal EX Seismo too many times because I was too busy getting mindfucked into defending.
• More on momentum, a rushdown is always helpful if you vary your mixups.  I get in bad habits with playing sometimes where I follow a set string rather than varying it.  Take notice of how they defend and use it accordingly, a mixup isn’t limited to a single hit or combo.
• Performing uppercuts and the like need to be reacted to or predicted, never guessed.  There is a large difference.
• Louie loves to bait things with focus attacks.  This basically serves the same purpose as walking forward and baiting an attack.  Baiting an attempt to shift the momentum (i.e., reversal) can be applied to a rushdown.
• Be wary of baiting things out too close to the opponent on wakeup, you might get thrown instead.
• Corner pressure…ugh.  Stay calm, don’t be afraid to backdash, but don’t reversal blindly or hit buttons unnecessarily.
• You can tell when an opponent is mashing with Blanka when their jab strings are imperfect.  As such, don’t be afraid to bait out the electricity and punish it with either a max ranged c.MK or a Viper elbow.
• There is more to a mixup than just on wakeup.  Performing a mixup on a standing/crouching opponent causes them to have to react faster rather than having the leisure time of their wakeup animation to gather their thoughts.
• Them feints…use them.  Quote from Louie: “Zaine once got me in a corner and did a fucking dance with Viper, I had no clue what he was doing.”
• DON’T JUMP SO DAMN MUCH.
• My meaty c.LK, s.LK, c.MP xx m.TK is not a good combo to do on an opponent who is waking up.  I ate several Ultras and up-balls because of this.  Try using it after a blocked jump in or during TK pressure.
• “If someone’s going to show the initiative, it’s worth helping them out.”

Zaine

• Supporting the jumping too much = bad theme, focus on the ground game using TKs.  They’re semi-safe and frustrating enough to train your opponent to counter them.
• Using TKs enough in a match will cause the opponent to focus more on countering them and thus make them become purely reactionary after you do it enough.
• In doing so, you increase your chances of a successful jump in.  So rather than going right for the mad jump-in combos that I love and adore, train my opponent to let me jump in.  You know when they have reached this point when they are simply crouch blocking and waiting for the TK.  Then you can jump in.
• More on TKs, there are plenty of options after each of the two ground TKs.
• For the light TK, while it’s slower, it basically keeps you safe on block.   Conversely, a medium TK will put you right in the opponent’s face and basically put you in a mixup.  Will they throw?  Will they jab?  Shoryu?  So many options for the opponent to counter anything that I can do.  Light TK also  puts you at a frame advantage on block, and so following it up with a c.HP will either cause a counter hit or a block.  It’s probably a good idea to continue on to Seismo SJC FADC, which will either be a beefy combo or a WTF DO I BLOCK moment for the opponent and allow a throw.  An additional follow up for a light TK is a crossup burning kick.  Zaine likes to also dash forward, which makes the opponent think OMG THROW and basically baits that whiffed throw tech with a burning kick.
• For the medium TK, while it has the disadvantages stated above, if you’re feeling risky you can continue with some options from there.  Many Viper players, including Zaine, like to go c.MP xx m.TK and then follow it up with another c.MP xx m.TK.  Another gutsy option is a throw.  One of Zaine’s neat tricks is to follow up a c.MP xx m.TK with a simple normal jump over and then a burning kick when they try to grab what they perceive as a missed crossup.  Zaine even mimed out the animation of a whiffed throw eating a burning kick to the face for me, haha.
• “You need to come over more often.”

I’m actually pretty confident that I left some stuff out, but my brain was so full of Street Fighter that I couldn’t hold anymore.  Add that to the fact that I did another all-nighter in a failed attempt to reset my sleep cycle, as well as the fact that it took me a half hour to write and remember this on said lack of sleep.

I ended each section from Louie and Zaine with a quote of theirs that I found particularly inspirational.  While it sounds overly mushy and gay, I really feel like it’s worth noting that they are going this far to help me, and therefore I should not waste their time.  Maybe I’ll bring a notebook with me next time I go and I’ll get more notes down.