Looking for help against Rash tongue pressure and defending Riptor's options on knockdown

Characters Aganos
1

Rash tongue pressure = feels doable, but still learning the matchup

My match with Menzo’s Rash (definitely the best Rash I’ve played) starts at 30:25.

Rash’s aren’t typically that difficult to go against. But Menzo’s Rash and his tongue double-tongue into normal pressure is not common at least in my experience.

I do see the juggles don’t do a ton of damage and are almost just lockout bait, but the damage does add up over time. Not too crazy to break. (the LP and MP are kinda tough to differentiate with Aganos, but he has his elbow up more for LP) I definitely should’ve shadow countered more. Also had not idea what happened (or why I didn’t block) on his last HK opener of the first match. Look like I just froze!

Outside of playing solid, using shadow counters, and trying to stick in standing LK’s immediately after tongue. How do you guys handle tongueheavy agressive rash players like Menzo? Thx!

Strong Riptor’s in Season3 can also pose a problem.


My match with Yokoh’s Riptor (one of top 3 Riptor’s I’ve faced) starts at 1:48:23.

The basic trio of low, overhead, throw got me pretty good at the start. In theory, you can typically block low, until the overhead comes out, but Riptor’s overhead comes out pretty dang quick and it looks very similar to the throw (at least it seems that way to me for now). So I’m open to how other Aganos players deal with strong Riptor’s who take advantage of this.

After watching this, I realized/learned that Rip can only do her overhead during predator stance, which unfortunately for her opponents, looks similar to a crouch. It’s certainly not as easy to block as Jago’s or Shago’s overheads. Hopefully I’ll get better at recognizing and blocking her overhead. Her throw comes out pretty dang quick though. As in, it seems that any teching of the throw will be on anticipation vs reaction.

After labbing up, I also noticed that you can “punish” her blocked sweep when her tail swoops back. I’m thinking of using crouching MK, has it covers close and slightly farther ranges. And of course whatever normal you use to punish, confirm/link it to an opener (light pulverizer’s my preference, but I’m sure going into medium natural disaster’s probably the easiest to execute). Look forward to utilizing this more in future matches.

I see that Aganos jumping MK crossup may not work on good Riptors bc of her runback tail whip (back HK). Also, the HK stomp needs more distance than normal due to her run-in flame.

The first match was pretty much knockdown slaughter and a counterbreaker. Although my shadow counter of the jumping HP attack didn’t recap, I simply got outplayed. It’s all good. Still learning! I’ll definitely try to keep more distance when playing strong Riptor players.

The second match I played better, but still had some simple execution errors on my behalf. I ended a lockout early and messed up an ender. Riptor still did her knockdown triple threat. And I see Riptor does Glacius style huge burst damage (like roughly 60%) if you lockout and she has two meters.

Any help, feedback, specifics, etc. are welcome. In the mean time, I’m working on “gitting gud” lol! Again, thx!

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Unfortunately, I have no character specific advice for you. I’m sure the resident Aganos’ will show up shortly though.

One thing: ALL throw techs are anticipation. It is physically impossible to react to a throw attempt - they start up in like 5f, so yeah. Always anticipation.

I like your positive attitude, by the way. Keep that outlook on gittin’ gud, and you will.

3

I hear ya on the throws. Makes sense. And as far the positive attitude, thank you. It’s the only way to go!

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4

There’s something wrong with the embedded Twitch video, so I couldn’t watch it. I have fought Menzo in the 8 Bit Beatdown though, so I know how he plays. You’re right in that you have to be willing to take your turn back with LK after many of his approaches. What worked for me was abusing LK after blocking, because it’s +4 on block and doesn’t push back much. I would do something like: LK > LK > LK > Throw while holding forward in between the LK’s. If you end up pushing them out of throw range, you can go for an instant overhead/sweep mixup. Against aggressive players, it throws them off and makes them re-think their approach. That in turn will make them more likely to spend meter on a reversal.

As for Riptor, there’s not much I can tell you. She has a heavy button for every occasion and it’s tough to put her in a tough situation as Aganos. In many situations, you should just pick a defensive option that minimizes how much damage you’re going to take and just eat the damage if you’re wrong, while not allowing yourself to be conditioned.

Unlike most other characters, Riptor has a low heavy button that starts a combo, while her heavy overhead is just a knockdown, so you should default to blocking low on wakeup. She has a heavy sweep in Predator, but if you’re able to react to her going into it, you should block high by default because the overhead is easier to punish than the sweep.

If she’s running at you, you should default to Shadow Countering because being wrong on a throw tech can mean you lose all chunks if she did jump HP. I’ve thought about a possible throw tech/Shadow Counter option select there, but I don’t think it panned out very well.

Her counter to a wakeup throw tech is jump HP, which is a projectile. The projectile classification gives you a wider window to react with Shadow Natural Disaster if you have the meter.

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5

Thank you for your feedback and tips! I, and hopefully other Aganos players, definitely appreciate them.

I still havnt faced any rash’s that put the tongue pressure on like menzo, so basically im waiting to get more experience in that.

It definitely makes sense to block low and react up. I do that with other characters often, but your point on minimizing damage taken kind of boosted my psyche and now I’m actually getting better at blocking riptor on knockdown. I’ll be trying to get more sets with riptor players.

I’m looking forward to shadow countering any predator overhead stabs.
And I’ll also be punishing blocked sweeps with crMK xx roll (close range) and crMP xx roll (farther range).

And thanks to the 3.4 walk stomp, if riptor or any other character is trying to continually sweep you on wakeup, u can now low-crush punish it and go into combo! It’s pretty nice to see the punish notification come up. Seems it’s best to block first though.

6

Wait… Can you punish on wake up? Or is this more of a punish if you block a sweep on wake up and they scubbishly go for another one and you input the stomp walk between sweeps? (Therefore kinda guessing)?

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I think what he meant is that if you’re knocked down and have the read that your opponent is going to do a low meaty, F+HK will work as a wakeup because it’s low invulnerable during its startup, much like Jago’s Windkick. It’s not a ‘punish’, so to speak, but more like a reversal that only beats one thing.

It’s still a big guess, but if you’re right, you get a full combo off of it. If you have the meter, you can do:
Wakeup stomp -> stomp -> easy confirm into unbreakable Shadow Payload Assault -> Wall Crash/Chunks/whatever.

8

^ this exactly