Match-up Discussion Raiden Matchup Discussion Thread

[RWDY Nori]

If the round starts and I do a clone, you won't have time to do anything. Even if we are both neutral. You will have to take a very unsafe guess (both teleport/superman are super unsafe to just throw out randomly). You literally have to bait the SZ into making a mistake, which is hard w/a simple normal poke. As I said, SZ's normals are just flat out better. Most players complain Raiden's normals are not that great and they are 100% right. If Raiden had great normals, he would be pretty ridiculous.

What's to stop a SZ doing a clone and then 22ing you in anticipation on the other side? If you teleport and back up and make the 22 whiff, then wonderful, go get your free 36%. However, it's still a guessing game. If you teleport and the SZ expects it, slide is FREE. If you jump back, you lose adv. If you jump forward, 22 to something silly SZ has. I promise you, a smart SZ will not just dash block to Raiden to bait out a teleport. He'll start out w/a clone cause it's the best option. He'll start out w/22 cause it's range is just ridiculous.

Are you STILL not seeing what I'm saying yet, or do you still whole heartedly feel Raiden has some magical adv out of any of the above scenarios?

I'm not sure what you are basing this off of, but if you are stomping your local SZs around you, wonderful, great job. At high level though, the best players will always consider this even for the very simple reason of clone. It is absolutely great vs Raiden as the many reasons I've listed above. It's just too fast to react to

 

[shoshinsha]

If the round starts and I do a clone, you won't have time to do anything. Even if we are both neutral. You will have to take a very unsafe guess (both teleport/superman are super unsafe to just throw out randomly). You literally have to bait the SZ into making a mistake, which is hard w/a simple normal poke. As I said, SZ's normals are just flat out better. Most players complain Raiden's normals are not that great and they are 100% right. If Raiden had great normals, he would be pretty ridiculous.

What's to stop a SZ doing a clone and then 22ing you in anticipation on the other side? If you teleport and back up and make the 22 whiff, then wonderful, go get your free 36%. However, it's still a guessing game. If you teleport and the SZ expects it, slide is FREE. If you jump back, you lose adv. If you jump forward, 22 to something silly SZ has. I promise you, a smart SZ will not just dash block to Raiden to bait out a teleport. He'll start out w/a clone cause it's the best option. He'll start out w/22 cause it's range is just ridiculous.

Are you STILL not seeing what I'm saying yet, or do you still whole heartedly feel Raiden has some magical adv out of any of the above scenarios?

I'm not sure what you are basing this off of, but if you are stomping your local SZs around you, wonderful, great job. At high level though, the best players will always consider this even for the very simple reason of clone. It is absolutely great vs Raiden as the many reasons I've listed above. It's just too fast to react to

If you decide to just toss out a clone randomly the instant the match starts, great. But it's just a guess. It's a guessing game, and that same logic could be used to ask the question "What if Raiden just immediately teleports at the start of the round?" Are you saying that if Sub clones at the same moment that Raiden teleports, that Sub will have frame advantage? Because no match I have ever played suggests that to be the case. In that situation, Raiden might not be able to start a big combo with the slow-ass b3, but he can easily start a f24 block string, go for a throw attempt, etc. without being interrupted.

And that's my point. Ultimately, the match is (as you also mentioned) a lot of guessing on both players' parts. However, Raiden has more useful options to choose from in MOST situations, while Sub's tactics are more limited. I never said it wasn't a close fight.

 

[RWDY Nori]

If you want to think it's 6-4, cool. It's probably the most even fight in the entire game and I think you are only looking at what Raiden can do, not what SZ can do, sadly

 

[shoshinsha]

If you want to think it's 6-4, cool. It's probably the most even fight in the entire game and I think you are only looking at what Raiden can do, not what SZ can do, sadly

I never said it was 6-4 and, in fact, I said several times that I think it's quite close. My only point was to argue about some of the specific comments made about what happens IN the matchup.

 

[NRF CharlieMurphy]

And that's my point. Ultimately, the match is (as you also mentioned) a lot of guessing on both players' parts. However, Raiden has more useful options to choose from in MOST situations, while Sub's tactics are more limited. I never said it wasn't a close fight.

Raiden's tools are severely limited once a clone is on the playing field. As I said earlier... regular superman runs into it. His meaty strings push him into it after a teleport. So no... I would not say Raiden has more useful options. The simple fact Raiden has to burn meter to get through the clone means a lot. This matchup is weird because it leads both characters to their ultimate strengths. Raiden is a baiting character... and Sub is a pressure character.

 

[shoshinsha]

Raiden's tools are severely limited once a clone is on the playing field. As I said earlier... regular superman runs into it. His meaty strings push him into it after a teleport. So no... I would not say Raiden has more useful options. The simple fact Raiden has to burn meter to get through the clone means a lot. This matchup is weird because it leads both characters to their ultimate strengths. Raiden is a baiting character... and Sub is a pressure character.

I agree with what you say about the clone seriously impeding Raiden's game. However, keep in mind that he doesn't necessarily HAVE to spend meter to deal with it. He can turtle up and just wait a couple seconds for it to disappear. At that point, they return to the neutral game I've been talking about that favors Raiden. Then Sub again has to guess whether he can safely get another clone on screen and recover from it without handing the momentum over to Raiden. The problem is that a clone midscreen doesn't benefit Sub much except as a defensive option (which, of course, is great if he already has the lead). Now, if Sub manages to get Raiden in the corner with a clone in front of him and get him intimidated and panicking to get out, then Raiden is well and truly boned. But then, I can't really think of a lot of characters who do well when cornered by Sub.

Edit: I also want to stress that I'm well aware that I'm not the best Raiden player out there. However, I do know that there are some things that Raiden has that really give Sub trouble. For example, at a range of about one-third to one-half screen or greater, you can pretty much teleport on reaction to anything Sub does and have at LEAST enough advantage for a throw attempt, and usually more. You don't even really have to read WHAT he's going to do, because unless he just does standing 2 or something to bait you (which you obviously have to be aware of against a good player), he's not going to recover in time to respond to the teleport. Now, if you get antsy and teleport PREEMPTIVELY, then yeah, you're setting yourself up for hurt. But that's different.

Also, as far as this "hide in the clone" strategy is concerned, I've found that--with at least SOME consistency--Raiden's b3 will safely hit a Sub who's standing in the clone and do damage in time to prevent Raiden from getting frozen. Now of course, this assumes that Sub doesn't block the b3, but if Sub is just standing in the clone and blocking, he's not much threat anyway. Again, I'm not saying I've got the foolproof anti-Sub technology, or even the best ANYTHING technology. I can only speak from personal experience and maybe a little bit of what I've seen watching tournament-level matches. And I do consider Sub to be one of my secondaries, so maybe knowing how he plays from the inside out helps me in the match. Or maybe all the Subs I've played just sucked. Who knows. Just trying to contribute my experience to the discussion.

 

[MKF30]

From my experience as a Raiden player and someone who's faced Raiden's online overall generally speaking, I think his hardest match ups are:

KL-obvious reasons

Reptile-Very tricky imo for Raiden

Ermac-Ermac can dish out heavy damage or decent on blocked Supermans

 

[Peckapowa]

Raidens toughest matchups imo

reptile: elbow dash can punish teleport and also neutralizes raidens space control, also vb pressure doesnt work in corner.
johnny cage: this matchup is crazy, cage can go on rampage and abuse raidens lack of mobility up close, however raiden has serious space control advantage.
kung lao: i find this to be even, teleport escapes a lot of kung laos fast appraoch options

 

[Peckapowa]

i also find sonya to be a rather tough matchup for raiden but maybe thats because im unfamiliar with it.

 

[Vilén]

From my experience as a Raiden player and someone who's faced Raiden's online overall generally speaking, I think his hardest match ups are:

...

Ermac-Ermac can dish out heavy damage or decent on blocked Supermans

This just in: Raiden has bad match-ups with the entire cast.

 

[shoshinsha]

If Raiden has ANY tough matchups, it's probably Reptile, and even that's a close one. All others I'd say he goes 5-5 or better on when played properly (i.e. - NOT rushdown).

 

[Vilén]

7-3 vs Baraka
6-4 vs Cyber Sub-Zero
6-4 vs Cyrax
7-3 vs Ermac
xxx vs Freddy Krueger
6-4 vs Jade
7-3 vs Jax
5-5 vs Johnny Cage
5-5 vs Kabal
5-5 vs Kano
xxx vs Kenshi
6-4 vs Kitana
5-5 vs Kung Lao
6-4 vs Liu Kang
5-5 vs Mileena
6-4 vs Nightwolf
7-3 vs Noob Saibot
7-3 vs Quan Chi
xxx vs Rain
4-6 vs Reptile
6-4 vs Scorpion
6-4 vs Sektor
7-3 vs Shang Tsung
7-3 vs Sheeva
7-3 vs Sindel
xxx vs Skarlet
6-4 vs Smoke
6-4 vs Sonya Blade
6-4 vs Stryker
5-5 vs Sub-Zero

Agree? Disagree? DISCUSS!

I'll throw in some musings on this:

I'd say Raiden goes 6-4 with Kenshi for... obvious reasons. Same deal as Kenshi vs. Smoke but Raiden comes with thndrgdlk wall carry.

There's a pretty noticeable lack of Freddy players, so my match-up knowledge here is limited but the smart money is that Freddy is free to Raiden. Throwing claws is stupid here and the teleport is superman'd on reaction since it only has projectile invulernability. So he's left with the 50/50 game? He has to play aggressive to get that started and aggression vs. Raiden = owned. I smell a 6-4/possible 7-3. Unless I'm missing something really big.

Raiden's probably a shitty match for Skarlet for almost the exact same reason he's a shitty match for Freddy. But as few Freddys as there are, there are even fewer Skarlets so I can't say for certain.

As for Scorpion... I don't see that as 6-4 Raiden. Hellfire is a bitch, seeing that you can't get away from that bullshit on reaction with a jump or a teleport. So if you want to get around it, you have to put yourself at risk ahead of time. Raiden's comfort zone in every fight is "way away from dat mofo", which is Scorpions optimal Hellfire range. Jumping preemptively at that range leaves you open to AA spear into vortex. Anything closer than "way away from dat mofo" in this fight is just as obnoxious because Scorpion's normals are better than yours. Raiden has a really hard time creating a positional advantage vs. Scorpion. Playing against Scorpion is like playing as Scorpion; you either guess right and win or you guess wrong and lose. I'd call this as 5-5.

Just opinions.

Edit: I'll add that the Raiden matchup chart is one that, in my opinion, should be considered very tentative. Raiden is extremely underrepresented in high level play.

 

[Peckapowa]

5-5 vs sonya (n ot quite sure could be worst)

id say 6-4 against kano
6-4 against sub

4-6 against reptile(vicinity blast doesnt work on block, elbow dash fucks shit up and its real hard to punish with 334)
5-5 against liu kang
5-5 against cage for similar reasons to liu kang

 

[MKR]

I play with raiden and read all above replies and i think Kano could give hard match against raiden.

 

[Peckapowa]

ive changed my thoughts as ive played this game much much more against better comp
raiden beats cage and kang

sektor might be 5-5 because of fast jab

hes one of the few chars whos even with kabal he may even have an advantage

raiden loses to sonya 4-6 and reptile 4.5-5.5, could be a little worst in both cases especially sonya im not pro at this

not sure about jax and rain, id say he prob beats jax because he makes it tough to abuse gps i havent played enough jax's yet.

not sure about quan-chi
id say he prob beats kenshi and freddy and skarlet

 

[ZeroEffect]

Been playing the mileena/Raiden matchup more often lately, and found out something interesting...

Seems like the scrubbier the Raiden plays, the harder it is for me to beat him. It's funny but true. If I play a really patient and smart Raiden, who uses superman to interrupt my frame traps and create space, and uses teleport in the best situations, and all that. I can see the match being kinda close to even. If I fight someone who just randomly throws out teleports and flies around the screen no matter how far away they are just for the hell of it, I feel like it's a 7/3 for Raiden.

Granted in tournaments you'll mostly get the smarter, more cautious play. but the random teleports and supermans eventually condition me to try to wait them out and then I get stuck in blockstrings I normally would avoid. Does anyone else find this to be a problem with other matchups?

 

[Raidenwins]

I agree with what you say about the clone seriously impeding Raiden's game. However, keep in mind that he doesn't necessarily HAVE to spend meter to deal with it. He can turtle up and just wait a couple seconds for it to disappear. At that point, they return to the neutral game I've been talking about that favors Raiden. Then Sub again has to guess whether he can safely get another clone on screen and recover from it without handing the momentum over to Raiden. The problem is that a clone midscreen doesn't benefit Sub much except as a defensive option (which, of course, is great if he already has the lead). Now, if Sub manages to get Raiden in the corner with a clone in front of him and get him intimidated and panicking to get out, then Raiden is well and truly boned. But then, I can't really think of a lot of characters who do well when cornered by Sub.

Edit: I also want to stress that I'm well aware that I'm not the best Raiden player out there. However, I do know that there are some things that Raiden has that really give Sub trouble. For example, at a range of about one-third to one-half screen or greater, you can pretty much teleport on reaction to anything Sub does and have at LEAST enough advantage for a throw attempt, and usually more. You don't even really have to read WHAT he's going to do, because unless he just does standing 2 or something to bait you (which you obviously have to be aware of against a good player), he's not going to recover in time to respond to the teleport. Now, if you get antsy and teleport PREEMPTIVELY, then yeah, you're setting yourself up for hurt. But that's different.

Also, as far as this "hide in the clone" strategy is concerned, I've found that--with at least SOME consistency--Raiden's b3 will safely hit a Sub who's standing in the clone and do damage in time to prevent Raiden from getting frozen. Now of course, this assumes that Sub doesn't block the b3, but if Sub is just standing in the clone and blocking, he's not much threat anyway. Again, I'm not saying I've got the foolproof anti-Sub technology, or even the best ANYTHING technology. I can only speak from personal experience and maybe a little bit of what I've seen watching tournament-level matches. And I do consider Sub to be one of my secondaries, so maybe knowing how he plays from the inside out helps me in the match. Or maybe all the Subs I've played just sucked. Who knows. Just trying to contribute my experience to the discussion.

Raiden easily escapes Sub-Zero's corner pressure with Air-Superman. Other than that, good observations. I am not going to put a number on it, but I will say that in my opinion the Raiden-Subs match-up is easily in Raiden's favor. The reasons for that have already pointed out in this thread and others. When I am on the select screen and my opponent picks Sub-Zero I always release a sigh of relief, knowing that an easy match is coming up, unless of course I am playing a beast of a player such as GamerBlake or someone else whose skill level is way above mine.

 

[BigMilk]

New Years Resolution: Update Matchup Threads!! How should Raiden deal with the Jax MU?

 

[xenogorgeous]

I'm very curious about this matchup : Raiden x Rain !!

I suspect is a 5-5, very even. Rain has a very good teleport that can keep up with Raiden, and some of his combo strings are very good, maybe with some frame advantage over Raiden's one ? I noticed that PL did a lot of crossup jump punch with Raiden, after teleport, as part of mix up pressure "guess game", and Rain has a very good defense option with Geyser Kick.

Since Rain's Lightning move seems to have "tracking" feature, could be use in reaction against Raiden's teleport ?

 

[MKF30]

This just in: Raiden has bad match-ups with the entire cast.

I definitely don't think that(unless you're being sarcastic) but Raiden definitely isn't as BAD as some people make him out to be.

 

[STB Sgt Reed]

If the round starts and I do a clone, you won't have time to do anything. Even if we are both neutral. You will have to take a very unsafe guess (both teleport/superman are super unsafe to just throw out randomly). You literally have to bait the SZ into making a mistake, which is hard w/a simple normal poke. As I said, SZ's normals are just flat out better. Most players complain Raiden's normals are not that great and they are 100% right. If Raiden had great normals, he would be pretty ridiculous.

What's to stop a SZ doing a clone and then 22ing you in anticipation on the other side? If you teleport and back up and make the 22 whiff, then wonderful, go get your free 36%. However, it's still a guessing game. If you teleport and the SZ expects it, slide is FREE. If you jump back, you lose adv. If you jump forward, 22 to something silly SZ has. I promise you, a smart SZ will not just dash block to Raiden to bait out a teleport. He'll start out w/a clone cause it's the best option. He'll start out w/22 cause it's range is just ridiculous.

Are you STILL not seeing what I'm saying yet, or do you still whole heartedly feel Raiden has some magical adv out of any of the above scenarios?

I'm not sure what you are basing this off of, but if you are stomping your local SZs around you, wonderful, great job. At high level though, the best players will always consider this even for the very simple reason of clone. It is absolutely great vs Raiden as the many reasons I've listed above. It's just too fast to react to

Projectile him to death.

Sub-Zero fails versus projectiles.

 

[Peckapowa]

raiden kills sz

 

[CJKRattlehead]

I need tips for the CZS MU. The dive kick is the main problem for me even when I'm not teleporting, anyone aware of severe weaknesses for CZS? I'm inexperienced in that match-up but I see myself playing J360 a lot more in the future. Just anything basic helps.

 

[Chaosphere]

I need tips for the CZS MU. The dive kick is the main problem for me even when I'm not teleporting, anyone aware of severe weaknesses for CZS? I'm inexperienced in that match-up but I see myself playing J360 a lot more in the future. Just anything basic helps.

What I do in that matchup is to try and bait a dive kick and blow it up with ex-shocker. Actually, you can even regular shocker him out of a divekick but you have to have good timing. Other than that... just know how to block his normal strings and punish the slide. If you know what his combos look like then you shouldn't have a problem not breaking his smaller percentage combos and saving your meter for ex-shocker. You never really want to use 334 or b312 in open space or a jump in. You can try those strings to test whether or not they parry between the last two hits. If so you can do things like 33~teleport to get them to throw out that parry and punish accordingly. But if you want to be totally safe, ONLY use f24 in open space. After a jump in punch use strings like b2,f1 - b2,f1~vb - f2,3 - f2,3~vb. All of those strings jail. And all of them are 0 on block. Mix them up with teleports depending on what they are doing or how they are reacting. That's about all of the advice I have and I don't play CSZ very often so sorry if this is already stating the obvious.

 

[srs1989]

Been playing the mileena/Raiden matchup more often lately, and found out something interesting...

Seems like the scrubbier the Raiden plays, the harder it is for me to beat him. It's funny but true. If I play a really patient and smart Raiden, who uses superman to interrupt my frame traps and create space, and uses teleport in the best situations, and all that. I can see the match being kinda close to even. If I fight someone who just randomly throws out teleports and flies around the screen no matter how far away they are just for the hell of it, I feel like it's a 7/3 for Raiden.

Granted in tournaments you'll mostly get the smarter, more cautious play. but the random teleports and supermans eventually condition me to try to wait them out and then I get stuck in blockstrings I normally would avoid. Does anyone else find this to be a problem with other matchups?

lol, funny you should say that, cuz in general, one would think in a match after playing the game for a while, that some things just aren't smart. And due to the fact that some things aren't smart, you dont really predict the other player doing these things, so, at least I (for the most part ;D) try to prepare for the choice that most of the better players would make, and get hit with some oddball attack. Funny how this works huh?