Glacius vs Hisako Matchup Discussion

Hey guys, been absent from KI for a while. And after coming back and playing for a few days I warmed up and started kicking ■■■ again. But for the life of me, I can’t seem to handle Hisako at all. I just get destroyed. I wanted to ask the honorable and noble council of Glacius for their help against the phantom threat.

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I honestly can’t help you here. I just play Glacius how I normally play him against characters like Sabrewulf and hope for the best.

Despite what @STORM179 will tell you, I suck at this matchup.

Hisako is a ridiculous, and “special” character to fight against.

There is no “Right way” to fight her.

With other characters, you can sometimes see things like:

  • "If i do THIS move, they HAVE to respect it, because their character cant do anything about it."
    But with Hisako, She has EVERY tool to counter someone imaginable. So there is no “Battle plan” for fighting her. Even when she whiffs a move, and you think you can punish her, YOU CANT. Even when you notice her block strings and try to shadow counter… YOU STILL CANT. She has all of the tools to make ALL defensive strategies fail. Which makes you scared to do anything to her at all. THAT is her gimmick, Fear.

As strange as it may sound, The only strategy to beat her is to NOT be afraid. Hit her every chance you get, disrespect her as much as possible, and then you will see that: when she is forced to play defense, she is no batter than any other character. The only thing you have to look out for is her counter.

How to deal with her counter:
When you attempt a move, and she counters it, sometimes you may think: “OK i guess i cant do that anymore, or she will catch me.” This is NOT true. This logic is what makes people scared, and begin to play defense. The truth is, Her counter is very unsafe, and has to be correctly chosen (Between HIGH or LOW) to succeed. It is not a good move, unless they KNOW you will fall for it. So you have stop thinking: “I am fighting HISAKO, so i CANT do certain moves”, and START thinking: “I am fighting the person PLAYING Hisako, and i can hit them with whatever i want, as long as i DONT do the move they think i will do”. if you are playing aggressively, then the only way you can loose is if they start countering you. so your job in this matchup is to learn WHEN and HOW your opponent wants to counter, and then punish them for countering. Here are some strategies to think about:

  • Jump at them, and do not press any buttons. Most hisakos will attempt to counter an air kick. So just DONT attack in the air, and when you land, you can get a full combo punish.
  • If they are knocked down, you can add an EXTRA LAYER to the tip above ^^^ by going for a cross-up, but not actually attacking. The hisako player will think: “If they went through all this trouble of setting up a cross-up, then they are SURELY going to attack, right?” Again, just dont attack. Land on the other side, and punish the counter.
  • Land a sweep, then while they are knocked down STAY CROUCHING a few feet away from them. they will think: “He is crouching, and too far away to throw me, so they MUST be trying to attack low when i get up.” Then as soon as they start to get up, you stand up, and use a surprise overhead attack, which will beat out the counter.
  • One strategy that is NOT affected by the counter, is a throw mix-up. If they wake up with a counter, you can still throw them. then, if you think they will jump next time, you can do a low or an overhead to keep them on the ground, just like with any other character.
  • Dont be afraid to throw projectiles up close, especially if they are knocked down. Projectiles are a good way to avoid her parries, they are unexpected, and can be converted into combos in some cases. This is one of the ONLY options that she HAS to block. (Most Hisako players are so used to teleporting, jumping, parrying, counter-hitting ect… That FORCING them to block will make them feel like they are loosing control of the match.)

Honestly, the trick with Hisako (no matter what character you’re using) is to try and make her feel locked down and stuck with pressure. However, then at a random time you have to dial it back and fake her out, because she’ll start countering you. It’s tricky, but the point is to not be too scared.

As far as breaking her, I like to wait on her linkers and break them. Breaking autos is much more difficult since there are 6 versions plus the staggered versions ad another 4 animations.
You can break the linkers immediately after the last hit if you are quick enough.

Its still really hard, dont get me wrong, but this has helped me be a bit more successful.

As the Glacious player, poke her with ranged specials. She can’t counter projectiles and it’s one of your most useful tools against this MU. A competent Hisako will try to knock you down whatever chance they get, which is detrimental to Glay since his wake up isn’t the best.
Your best option is to either block, back dash or jump. If you go for puddle punch, the Hisako player can simply use possession and take an easy 10%. Also, jumping can be a bit risky, for the fact that the Hisako player can use the air ORZ to recapture or snack you down. So be weary.

The gameplan is to consistently think and approach the Hisako player unlike any other character in the game. Go for mix ups as much as you can so the Hisako won’t catch onto a pattern and punish you with a counter. Good luck, dude.

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I have the best luck when I don’t sit still and let Hisako think.

Don’t let Hisako condition you. Some your ideas are good ideas that she makes you think are bad. That’s how she gets into your head.

So she hits you with possession when you wakeup puddle punch twice in a row. So? Posession is a guess just like everything else. It’s like picking rock three times in row in RPS. Sure, you CAN do it, and it MIGHT work, but is she actually gonna go for it?

Who knows. Puddle punch to find out :wink:

I’m encouraging scrubby play I know but sometimes you gotta go for something ballsy.

*■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ *

So while I think @ZDhome’s characterization of Sako and her tools is a bit overwrought, the tips he gives are generally solid. The most important thing in general when fighting Hisako really is to play with just the right amount of disrespect. Erratic play frustrates Hisako players, because her whole gameplan revolves around conditioning the opponent to do what she wants them to.

I think a really important thing in the MU is to have a hail out at all times in neutral. Getting them out can be pretty tricky (shadow ORZ goes super far, and descent will punish multi-hail calls if the Sako is paying attention), but you really need them out to establish Glacius’ game in the fight. Also, don’t go for staple options like jump-back kick (whichever one you use for instant overhead) too often - Sako punishes jump back+button better than anyone else in the cast.

I might have more later, but currently coming back from CEO and precisely zero hours of sleep, so not exactly at peak cognitive faculties at the moment. If you have any specific questions though, I can probably answer them.

The issue with throwing Hail at her is that hail’s startup is like a decade. Every time I call some hail up, she teleports behind me a rekkas my testicicles off.

How do you pressure her with Hail if the teleport is such an easy dodge/punish?

Just saw your post, and you really seem like you know what’s up. Question for you: How do I keep Hail out, if during Hail’s startup, Hisako teleports behind me and punishes me? That tele-punish doesn’t seem like it should be safe, but I keep getting nailed by it.

The teleport is wildly unsafe, which is why Hisako will generally only go for it if you do something ill-advised like call out a hail in pure neutral or an uber-obvious shatter or something. You’re basically looking to call hail after any knockdown you get on Hisako. After you have one out, they can actually become pretty self-sustaining if you play your cards right. Use shatter/hail combinations to force her to dodge nonsense, and then use that as a distraction to pressure her in other ways. The more you force her to think about (shatter, lance, shoulder, bouncing hail), the harder it will be for her to punish your hail calls accordingly.

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N00b question. How do you define erratic in this context?

I tend to play “random” meaning I will poke almost an entire round only to end with a zoning strategy. Maybe easier because I play Aria but I agree with playing your own game. I just hope random=erratic.

I guess what I mean is consistently going for things that are very clearly sub-optimal in a given situation. If I’ve blown up your attempted reversal twice already, doing it a third time is likely to hit me, because by that point I’ve already proven to you that I can and will beat that option and I’m not expecting you to be silly enough to do it again. Or if I’ve countered you in a particular situation a few times already, and you keep going for it.

Basically, at a certain point Hisako is expecting to condition you. By being stupidly obstinate about not getting conditioned, you tend to blow up her pressure options. As the Hisako gets better she’ll tend to have setups that don’t necessarily rely on you not doing something silly, but if she wants to get good damage she’ll eventually have to go to options that aren’t particularly airtight.

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