One of my FGC goals for 2016 is to finally start taking the time to analyze and learn from my games, but I’m not sure that I know how to approach this analysis. I’m pretty certain I’m missing a lot of things that higher level players can point out and get me to notice them. I’ve already performed this exercise with a Rising Thunder set and got some very valuable feedback, so I’m doing it again for KI.
If you could spare a few minutes of you time toward this end, I would be very greatful. You should know that I’m a less-is-more kind of player. I like to play things safe and steady, not take crazy risks or do flashy combos. If you notice particular one-off things, like “you missed a combo at x:xx”, feel free to let me know, but it’s mostly obvious. What I’m most interested in is any patterns or trends in my gameplay that I may not be aware of, set-ups I can incorporate or fail at, what I need to drill in training mode, stuff like that. Feel free to rip me a new one, as long as you’re civil and want to help rather than bash on a noob. 
Here are a few games I played yesterday against forum member Goldbaum (thanks again). We played close to 30 games, so this is just a snippet that doesn’t show everything, but I feel these games both showed that I wasn’t an absolute and complete arse at this game, as well as showcased some of my shortcomings very well. I used to main Jago, but hadn’t played him for a long time; I had some fun with Cinder, Thunder and Shadow Jago since season 2 ended. Now I want to get back to my main, with a side of Shago for some matchups where his superior mobility is a factor (Thunder, Aganos, Kan-Ra?).
Some things I’ve learned so far from these matches, as well as the others we played last night:
GENERAL
- I’m making way too many execution errors. Dropped combos all over, dropped juggles, the textbook error of cr.MK xx DP instead of fireball and so on. Obviously things I can drill, but with KI’s freestyle combo system, I’m not sure how to train this effectively.
- I can’t break shadow linkers for the life of me. Every time I try I get locked out on the first or second button press. This I can practice both ingame and through Infil’s site, so that’s all good.
- My opponent outspaced me most of the time. He was just outside the range of my best normals, I was just in range of his sweep, and I had trouble punishing it even if I blocked it. In general, my punishes are mediocre at their best and completely non-existent at their worst. This needs more lab time.
- I suck at anti-airing. I used to be better at it with Ryu in SF, but a lot of KI’s normal anti-airs (especially Jago’s cr.HP) have a weird timing and/or hitbox to me, plus I got used to Shago’s vertical DP, which threw off my regular Jago DP spacing. Still, I didn’t do it enough and I have to do a lot more.
- I may be walking back too much. Granted, I’m playing against Thunder and want to get away from him, but then I’m late with anti-airs because I was holding back and so on.
- I use raw instinct too much. The reasoning is that it’s easier to keep Thunder out with double fireballs and I could theoretically put on more pressure, also taking away his meter as Shago, but it’s not working out.
JAGO
- I use the overhead cancelled into fireball outside of instinct, which doesn’t really confer any advantage; I should probably be cancelling it into wind kick (light? medium?) for additional pressure. In fact, I should be pressuring a lot more against all characters, even if I don’t necessarily want to be close to Thunder, but I don’t really know how to do that outside of the corner (and I can’t get him there very often).
- I tried raw shadow moves way too often. It worked sometimes, but for the most part I was just hoping he would press something; he didn’t.
SHADOW JAGO
- I literally have no juggles. Well, I do have the Maximillian corner carry into shadow cashout combo, but that’s very situational and predicated on my opponent not breaking the f.H. If my juggles were better, I would almost certainly have won the second match and possibly the third as well.
- It would also have helped if I didn’t panic at the end of the third match. I think this comes down to the fact that I like to play patient, as I should especially against Thunder, but Shago in general just screams “GO HAM!” and sometimes I just crack, throw the unsafe stuff out there and hope for the best. That clearly doesn’t work. Not sure what I can do about this other than just repeating it over and over in my head. “Go slow, don’t panic, go slow, don’t panic”.
- I have no real idea how I should be using the tether part of Shago’s instinct. The Annihilation attempt you see in the video is completely botched, but I did get my opponent a few other times, including catching him in his landing frames after a jump, so not too terribly worried there yet. But whenever I opt for the tether option and manage to get a hit, I will generally just spam fireballs from full screen, including surged and shadowed, to keep Thunder out and take away his meter. I’m sure there are better ways to use it; any ideas?
If you want to help further, I am also looking for sparring partners to play extended sets with. I am in Europe and play mainly on the weekends; I also play KI and soon SFV, so I usually only get to play one of them any given weekend, but when I do sit down to play, I do so in longer stretches.
Thank you!
PS. Also posted this on Reddit if you prefer to reply there.
(dropping combos, constantly jumping…)
Good to know about the ground to air normals. Since I play Jago and Shago, I will use the meter ender most of the time, situationally going for the damage. That situation with 5/20%? That happened in one of the matches and I lost because of it. And the offence part… that’s what I struggle with a lot, since I’m a Ryu throw-fireball-punish-jump kind of guy for the most part; that’s also why I play KI the worst of all the fighting games I play.