Kojin's Sonic Tech Lab *taking another look at Speed's Sonic*

JayBee said:

its realatively easy to determine when you look at his vids on youtube like i had to, but at low percents especially his close range game revolves around Up and Forward Throws, mindgaming them to airdodge, then regrabing them for extra throws and damage. its a great set up it really is. if you havent added something like that to your game, then u need to. its that good.

Up throw > side B cancel (opponent will usually air dodge to avoid possible attack OR try to attack him in his charge state as they fall, BUT we know we can shield cancel and that's what he does) > regrab

then he does a few things to mix it up and keep pressure off of that. if you'll wait a moment I'll link some vids and show you some examples. and this is generally what I tend to go for, thoguh I think I tend to use SDVJ> aerial or uair spam a bit more in addition to what you see here. (sonic? spam? the? lol)

brb

for laziness purposes, Forced Air Dodge (FAD) is basically you mindgaming the opponent to airdodge so you can punish them after it. that's all.


Edit: Look at these points in that match closely: Snake (Ryko) vs Sonic (Malcolm) Match 1

@:35 - Fthrow on snake at 62%, > (FAD via sideB cancel) > regrab> Dthrow.
Result: +18% damage and opponent is offstage.

@1:14 - though the followup failed, he Up throws on snake at a low percent, then FAD via side B cancel near his landing spot so he can try to regrab him. unfortunately, he was just out side of grab range and got f tilted, but this is the foundation of malcolms grab setups.

@1:30 - again, this time the snake is at 45%. this time, he changes the look and does a FAD via empty jump. but fails due to improper spacing. note that despite the relatively high percents, this is still a viable strategy.

@2:26 - this is awesome, and shows the reward A sonic will get for good mindgames. From 0%, dtilt > grab > runs behind opponent ( which is hilarious because the Snake jabs where sonic was lol) > grab> pummel (1hit) > Up throw > FAD via foxtrotted SideB cancel (important that he moved before the sideb to fix his spacing issues during regrab attempts in this match) > Up Throw > Fair

Result: 41% total damage and Snake is in the air, where sonic has the advantage and has the opportunity to put in more damage is he chases correctly. Please note that Snake could have airdodged at teh second upthrow, but probably didn't because of the previous instances in the match where he got regrabbed because of that airdodging. in the end he got mindgamed into doing nothing lol.

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Camalange said:

I've done this to Terios.

Discuss.

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Chis said:

Kojin, could you do an analysis of me from my videos? You offered a few pages ago.

If not, I understand.

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JayBee said:

Chis no Style: the first thing I notice is that Chis' style is very spin based. His knowledge of fundamental ASC , SDVJ, and spin cancels are evident, so the foundation for a strong sonic is already in place. The main holes in his game revolve around mindgames, his throw game, his edge game, and his overreliance on certain moves.

His ground game is based on grabs, which usually end with a D-throw, baiting with cancels, and punishing with F-Smash, Bair, and Spin specials. His aerials are mostly bair based, which means its more for punishment than a KO move. He uses other moves, but he is more skilled at Bair than the others. He would do better to add Uair more, because it’s too good. Its a nearly lagless two hitter that juggles and baits airdodges, and its nasty disjoint give this move some of the priority that Sonic starves for.

His edge game also revolves around bair, again, the only problem I have with it besides the lack of different looks is that he also uses bairs so often. This means diminished power, which usually isn’t a good thing considering sonic’s lack of a kill move. The edge game also needs to be more aggressive. Some matches I looked at had Chis allow his opponent to return to the ledge without any form of preventive measure. This will not do, especially since he doesn’t save Bair or F-Smash solely for killing. If I were Chis, I’d take a closer look at all the gimping methods Sonic has available, which you can find in on the sonic boards easily. If he was great at gimping/edgegaurding/ stage spikes, it wouldn’t be such a problem that he uses Bair so much, but since he’s not, heavier opponents will last even longer against him.

His throw game is how most other Sonics start off, reliant on the D-Throw. Unfortunately, we have a few problems. His follow-ups after the d-throw so far aren’t consistant enough, meaning his tech chasing needs work. He’d sometime be too busy charging a spin move when he could have simply ran over to them, for example. He doesn’t use the other throws like he should, especially since we know about the mindgames F-Throw and Up-throw give early/mid stock, which ties into his need to work on mindgames. this will make his diminished Bair and F-Smash issue less a problem, while giving him better chasing and damage ability (yeah I <3 Malcolm grab games).Plus, D-Throw is easy to tech, so use it, but don’t rely on it.

Once he learns to use more of his moves comfortably, and take more advantage of sonic’s edgegaurding/ gimp game, and add more uair to complement his bair usage, he should notice better improvement. Don’t use all your spin cancel repertoire so early too. Your mindgames will improve as you play those other sonics, I believe, so keep at it and you will get better. Use the up/forward throws and use your cancels to mindgame regrabs quickly rack damage. Be more aggressive during the edgegaurd and see how that works for you.

Style Type: Ground/Punish

Note: I’ll assume your better offline (duh) but that doesn’t change your move usage and tendancies IMO. Good luck, and I can’t wait to see your improvement.

Discuss. Steak.

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Camalange said:

That's some cool stuff Kojin. I like how you not only describe the playstyle, but you offer different ways to improve and to balance out the style...way past cool.

If I get some newer matches of myself up, would you mind analyzing me

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infzy said:

Kojin, is there a problem with your capture card? Each of the vids I tried, they had one part where they go crazychoppy, and then the sound sync is off for the rest of the vid.
Oh well, I just turn off sound.... some really great stuff there, I gotta watch them tmrw.

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Camalange said:

I commented in the Winning Steak Cinemas thread.

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Tenki said:

Yeah, this one's been bothering me for a bit. The landing lag time on the B-air is deceptive, but I have a feeling that, if buffering movements from landing lag, airdodges and aerials, can be controlled better, we can play 'faster' games with more fluid followups.

VSDJ is cool.

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JayBee said:

As Samus shot the fully charged shot, and I Upsmashed, my timing was slightly off. but for some reason, not only did the shot not damage sonic, but it actually clashed with Sonic, who continuted to Up smash! 9 i saw the clash bubble. i managed to do this one more time before i logged on to tell u guys. good stuff.

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Tucker! said:

ive been on here a month and alot of people have been jerk off$ to me and insulted me becuz im not as good a sonic as they are

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TwinkleToes said:

He got owned by playing too directly against someone that knew how to out-range and out-prioritize him. Not much else to say.

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Camalange said:

Er, wait, I lied.

What I was doing was short hopping over the opponent, fast falling so they got hit with the LAST hit, but it was angled so they get hit like...at his stomach, autocancel, then Usmash.

Sorry D:

It's still cool.

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