I have a pocket Sadira, but I haven’t devoted any serious time to her in S3. She’s still proficient, but probably not suitable for true high-level competition or anything.
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What happened at 7:05, why no parry?
Mashed the hell out of it. Move wasn’t active yet, so no counter.
To be honest, it’s one of the things I really wish was different about the mechanic. It probably won’t change because it’d be a significant buff, but it would be so helpful if you could also cancel startup or recovery frames into the counters.
REALLY ENTERTAINING SET TO WATCH THANKS STORM I LIKE CAPS!!!
Okay, so me arse was sorta thinking for me. Good SC’s and punishes on H.Kunai.
However, you CAN actually parry cancel startup and recovery frames… so, I guess, in the immortal words of 801Strider:
“MASH HARDER!!!”
Oh, and careful w/ those meaty Rekka setups when Sadira has INSX on deck, she caught you out w/ it a good many times. Spider is not Toad. 
Out of curiousity though, do they work vs. Orchid wakeup INSX, or does the firecat get you spanked?
What about tele-canceling on reaction to their INSX pop? I mean, Sako’s teleport is pretty slow, so it’s still gonna be risky, but so risky as to never be worth it?
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You cannot. I tested it this morning before I posted. Did a local versus match and straight-up piano’d the HP/HK->3P inputs, and the counter cancel will not occur until the moves enter active frames (something like 12 frames for HP, 15 for far HK). And for all her normals and specials, you cannot counter cancel once you are in recovery frames (I recommend testing it out with sweep or down+HP if you want to check for yourself). The reason it sometimes looks like it is just because active frames on some of her moves are long, and come deceptively late in the animation.
As always, if someone else can prove me wrong I’m more than happy to have them do it, but I don’t think I’m wrong on this one. Possession might be instantly counter-cancelable (in practice it seemed I could cancel it almost before it began), but without frame stepping it I can’t say definitively. I frame stepped the other ones though, so pretty sure on them.
Yeah, there’s an interesting interaction that you can get with meaty rekka on her instinct pop where the web comes out but Sako just slides right through it, so I was trying to figure out the timing for that. It’s uber wonky though, so in the future I think I’ll just stick to the cross-up setups when she has instinct stocked. Descent cancels are mostly a no-go - can do it safely with a far HP, but at the necessary range for that she’s just as likely to just backdash without having to use instinct at all, and any closer and the web hits.
Meaty rekkas aren’t great on Orchid to challenge her instinct. I prefer wait->instinct pop->shadow influence against her.
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I tested it in the lab before posting, by buffering the H.Rekka2 and mashing 3P(macro) w/ hitboxes on. I could parry-cancel before I ever saw a red box, though I guess it is possible that the red existed for a single frame and my eyes never saw it. The recovery frames thing absolutely must be wrong though, otherwise what would be the point? How do you deter blocked Rekka punishes w/ parry cancel if you can’t cancel recovery frames?
What of whiff-cancelling? I know virtually all of Sako’s buttons & specials can be cancelled on whiff, certainly these cancels aren’t occurring in the same 2-5f windows every time?
Unfortunately, I cannot record. But I can try to framestep and report my findings.
EDIT: Framestep count in progress, but thus far you absolutely CAN parry cancel H.Rekka2 before it goes active. There does appear to be a delay before it will cancel, but it cancels on startup frame 15. It is interesting to note that the ghostly slash particles appear long before the active boxes.
Ohhh that sounds slick. My bad, my bad.
I sorta figured. Shucks.
I’m pretty sure the counter cancel turns the first active frame into the parry, so no, I wouldn’t expect you to see an active red hitbox. I’d also recommend doing the rekka test with the overhead rekka - that one has a lot more startup, and has a definite window where you know you’re mashing counter, but it isn’t coming out yet. Frame stepping a replay with inputs turned on can illustrate this further.
Best guess that I have is that the rekka hits basically just have a lot of time in blockstun where you haven’t “truly” entered recovery frames. But test it out for yourself - do heavy rekka 3x, and then try and really delay the counter cancel. You’ll see that while you can delay the cancel (enough to beat reversal TJ tremor, for instance), there is a point where Hisako is returning to her idle animation and there’s nothing you can do about it. She has to recover, and you’ve missed your counter-cancel window.
Best example of the recovery thing though is still the sweep and down+HP examples I told you to try out. Do those and see what you get. If I could whiff sweep into counter I’d do it, believe me 
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Oh duh. I’m an idiot.
Yeah, sweep and cr.HP elicit same result. Active frame cancels, startup/recovery does not. I’m a jackass. That was fun.
Huh, so if you have a fast shadow like Sadira spin or Wulf ragged edge, and you block a rekka, you should just always do it after blocking the first one? It will either be a strict punish, or if you try to cancel into a second rekka, you will be in startup and unable to counter?
I watched later in the set and you were able to counter a Sadira shadow spin during a rekka sequence, so I guess he just did it slightly later than the first time?
Depends on a couple factors really. If I’m mashing heavy rekka and you try to put out a fast shadow, more than likely my counter cancel will win. Even on the standard overhead/low rekkas, so long as I’m mashing them there’s a decent chance I get the counter cancel. But I also often put “extra” gaps in between the rekkas to further mix people up or bait them into pushing a button or trying to jump out, and in those instances even a heavy rekka might lose to a fast shadow.
So it really just kind of depends on what the Hisako player is doing. If I’m mashing the rekka string you’ll probably lose, but if I’m at all delaying the swipes there’s a chance that I get dunked. And then whether you’re truly reversal-ing out of pressure gets layered on top as well.
So got around to watching your set, and apologies on how late it is. Ill offer up my notes as i watch.
Probably intentional, but i like how mid-round he backed off to the corner and you dashed in to close the distance immediately. Were you going for Heavy ORZ after he jumped and you AA’ed him? This wasthe second game, i believe.
A couple games in, im wondering if you cant bait out the drop dashing in on her Kunai.
It didnt take too long for him to catch onto your low reset after rekkas.But you adjusted to air ORZ after a bit and got results thete too.
He started doing weird full screen shadow spins that you punished the hell out of.
Do you favor being on the right side of the screen? Just felt like from watching that you become trickier from that side.
Suprised to see descent used. Ive seen you go sets without using it at all…
No idea at 35:53…must’ve just missed his window…
Late in the set where you guys had full screen standoff’s, were you looking for dash, j.MP?
And apologies again, hit reply as i was watching…
Probably a messed up TK’d ORZ to be honest. I usually do TK ORZ for the hard knockdown after down+HP.
Yeah, the same resets don’t generally work on very good players more than a few times, so I generally move through a rotation of them based on what options I wish to punish at a given time.
No, I don’t have a side preference.
It has its uses. Depending on the MU you’ll see me use descent less or more. Against Sadira, it’s good for getting out of the corner when she’s in instinct.
Yeah, he just missed the shadow counter window. He’s actually lucky that he did - I dropped the confirm because I expecting to have to counter the shadow. :-p
writes notes furiously
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Sup Guys and Girls! It’s been a while. Got a good set for ya!
Constructive Criticism is greatly appreciated!
@ItzTymeToDul beat me in this set. Anything I can do differently?
*Tagging @SneerfulWater57 because 
and the first 3 frequent posters according to the thread:
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I don’t have much time lately, but I will try to make it just for you 
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Me specifically? Sure, ill offer my thoughts.
Watched it one time through. First off, @ItzTymeToDul, you’ve got some dirty conversions off of Orda Shield.
So Ostrich, you asked what you could do differently. I guess i can talk about how i approach this matchup. First, my main thing at the start of the match is to corall Omen to the corner as soon as i possibly can, if able. Omen has too many good tools to roam midrange, and can hover over Kim’s head if he wants. In the corner, he has not one shadow “wakeup” option that you cannot counter in some way nearly on reaction and sitting still…
Shadow slide? Parry. Shadow orda shield? Parry. Shadow kicking orbs move? Parry. Shadow shendokuken? Grab can both punish and stuff it entirely. Or if you want to be cute, slightly delay it (since Omen can’t immediately move after this shadow) go for dragon grasp, then delayed parry. The dragon grasp animation will cause one or two orbs to whiff and the delayed parry will catch the remaining orb (s). Free dragon, burned bar, and advantage. Shadow form? It becomes more of an expected than surprise 50/50, but could be parried as well.
Also, that uppercut Orda (the name escapes me) whiffs Kim from up close, so that also limits him. And if you happen to eat a combo, no part of it outside of the enders move you all that much, making breaking him in the proper direction that much more challenging for him to escape.
In the midscreen, i will forego the damage ender for wall splat ender in order to move Omen where i want. If they gift me a lockout, then ill certainly switch to heavies and damage cash out.
Lastly, im keeping an eye out for s. Orda Shield or s. Shendokuken. S. Firecracker blows this up hilariously so long as they don’t slide. Any other approach is gonna catch dragon cannons, sometimes enough to just walk forward and manual.
Also, of note with s. Orda Shield outside of instinct? Not sure if i posted this but if they pop that within range of s. Firecracker if youre on the left side of the screen, do it immediately. It is close to a surefire 18%-23% unbreakable opener which can lead to a one-chance damage ender at 61% or a shadow cashout at around 72%. It can be done from the right side too, but Orda Shield will spawn meatying you if you’re too close. Same thing with instinct Orda Shield.
Far as your set goes…
When Omen pressures with button into fireball into button and so on (),after the fireball, you can figure to go for a parry attempt.
Maybe try for parry after jump-in’s more than shadow counter. He blew you up a couple of times for that with his flurry legs. I know it can be countered, but its finicky.
Later in the set he started using heavy fireballs. I think that move takes a full on second, start to finish to animate. Should be enough to try for s. Dragon dance.
He knows about l. Dragon Kick into cancel being jab punishable. He did so nearly every time you attempted it. Myself? I might still try the dragon kick (Bastfree had some good points about it) but not bother cancelling out to conserve the dragon.
Question, you only showed a dragon kick of varying strength after cancelling from s. Dragon Kick. Just your preference in juggle path? No trust to go st. HK into overhead/H dragon kick/L dragon kick for other options?
Don’t stand in place too long with firecracker out trying to reflect orbs. Slide beats firecracker clean 99% of the time. And it feels like it never catches Omen on his air dashes. If you cant get the reflect, almost might be better to let it go than take a nearly free opener from Omen.
You’ve got the same habit i do of going overhead after dragon kata confirms and potentially losing the combo. Just watch for that.
Other than that, im tapped out. Hope this is helpful.
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I don’t recall.
Ill see about timestamping it later. Meatloaf and cheesy scalloped potatoes are calling to me.
30:41 and 42:58
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Why wouldnt i? 
I got nothing, lol.
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