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Match Footage Critique my Smoke

Here are a couple of videos of me playing Smoke last night during our ATLMK casuals.

I am looking for some feedback on how I can get better. I have watched the videos and have seen a bunch of mistakes but 2 heads are better than one sort of thing. So let me have it so I can get better.

First video is me playing RTO Toxic.


Second video is me playing Pig of the Hut's CSZ. I really need some work on this matchup and how to overcome the insane stuff he is always doing to me. I only used Smoke for the first 2 matches. My Rain gets raped even worse.


Thanks in advance.

Cheers
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
Hey Ed make sure bOok Burning sees the rain vIdeo. I played him online last night and his rain is f ing awesome

Also Blake can REALLY help w smoke/CSz I'll ask him to
 
Wakeup/random teleports. Stop them. You should only be doing them as a whiff for oki pressure on a knocked down opponent, as on option select on jump kick, or as an instant air telepunch for antiair purposes, for the most part.

Careful of your jumping so much... it gets pretty predictable.

You can't expect to win if all you do is stand around blocking and don't try to pressure csz on his way in.

D1 more after you block an enemy's string.

Look at that static something dude that played an hour or so after you did. His smoke was BOSS.

you did great punishing reptile's dash :D
 
Wakeup/random teleports. Stop them. You should only be doing them as a whiff for oki pressure on a knocked down opponent, as on option select on jump kick, or as an instant air telepunch for antiair purposes, for the most part.

Careful of your jumping so much... it gets pretty predictable.

You can't expect to win if all you do is stand around blocking and don't try to pressure csz on his way in.

D1 more after you block an enemy's string.

Look at that static something dude that played an hour or so after you did. His smoke was BOSS.

you did great punishing reptile's dash :D
Thanks for the feedback, I noticed a lot of the same things.

Staticjack's smoke is pretty good we were trading wins back and forth off stream when we played. I am working on incorporating some of the things he does into my game, and vice versa. When we get our different play styles down I think we will both be BOSS.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
Yea that's great advice

Also Ed NJ after u block my strings to prevent cross over pressure. Go count the times

Also d1 after strings on block as well as EVERY TIME I jump in from a far jump back and instantly tele. Seriously u can do .5 mm off the ground. It'll teach me that I don't own the air
 
Yea that's great advice

Also Ed NJ after u block my strings to prevent cross over pressure. Go count the times

Also d1 after strings on block as well as EVERY TIME I jump in from a far jump back and instantly tele. Seriously u can do .5 mm off the ground. It'll teach me that I don't own the air
Thanks for the advice on how to beat you. I believe I still have some trouble dealing with the kind of pressure you put on me. Just gets me uncomfortable and that is why I freeze up and just block to death.

I saw Cyruss NJP you a bunch of times and I was kicking myself for not doing that more.
 
Building off that... remember that smoke is a character that owns and restricts the air. He does not perform in it. He used to when he had the OTG bomb AA combo, but that was patched forever ago. Regardless you're gonna be keeping your opponent grounded most of the time, and if you ever notice a position where he likes to jump, punish it with telepunch or EX bomb combo until he learns not to do that. Then your poke > throw/sweep/overhead combo mixups become more effective. :) You did fairly well but you look kinda fresh with smoke... have you just recently picked him up maybe? Because I used to play exactly like you, literally to the T haha.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
Thanks for the advice on how to beat you. I believe I still have some trouble dealing with the kind of pressure you put on me. Just gets me uncomfortable and that is why I freeze up and just block to death.

I saw Cyruss NJP you a bunch of times and I was kicking myself for not doing that more.
My goal w CSz always against everyone is to make the opponent feel as uncomfortable as possible and have him worry more about what undoing than he what he needs to do

That's why sub, kitana, kabal are bad match ups ecause they slow CSZ down and do that to hIm
 

Apock

Noob
You can't expect to win if all you do is stand around blocking and don't try to pressure csz on his way in..
 

GamerBlake90

Blue Blurs for Life!
First of all, LMFAO at "BeerGayED" and "Pig of the Slut." Fuckin' hilarious!

On to the criticism.

Your Smoke is good and you've demonstrated a good ability to punish some specials on block, but you sometimes drop your combos during the process of punishment. You can't afford to miss out on any damage if you want to win the fight. Be sure you get those practiced up. Also, if you punish your opponent with 2 to 1 to Smoke Bomb whilst on the ground, you can add a bounce (or neutral jump-punch) to lengthen the combo and add to the damage. It can be done midscreen and at the wall.

Watch for the Wake-Up attacks. Thanks to the recent patch, it's tougher to snuff 'em out even with low pokes, thus you'll want to be careful when you close the distance with Smoke's Teleport Punch after you knock the target to the ground...if they time it correctly, a Wake-Up can thwart your attempt to keep 'em under the pressure. If you choose to teleport after a knockdown, turn it into a true 50/50 by blocking afterwards and see if you can anticipate their Wake-Up. If you don't see them doing that often, pressure away with 3 to d1 to 2.

Speaking of pressure, did you know you can dash-cancel Smoke's Shake? You can mix that into some pressure strings in an effort to intimidate them, just like how you can with his Phase Towards and Phase Away abilities. However, like with Raiden's teleport mix-ups, this isn't very safe, so be sure you use this move sparingly. And don't forget to mix in his R1 and leg sweep so that you might trick them into blocking low, leaving them vulnerable to an overhead, or they won't block at all and they're free game.

If you choose to block from a distance, crouch-block a lot so that you can cover your bases more. At the same time, zone them out with his Phase Away if you have to and toss a Smoke Ball now and then, but if they anticipate your bomb correctly and manage to jump it, you're highly punishable, so do watch yourself.

His low pokes. Those are very important to his game, his d1 and d3 in particular. They will help you with pressure immensely. Abuse them! ...but not against some characters like Reptile, as his dash might be able to punish it if the player is smart.

When inputting Smoke's b2 to 3, be careful that you do not rush with the inputs. I commonly see Smoke players phasing away by accident when they move to do this and thus give up an opportunity to punish with a combo. Train your hands not to rebel against you.

Control the jumping more. There are many counters against it, Smoke's Enhanced Shake being one of them.

The random Teleport Punches are not that wise, even on Wake-Up. Gain some control over them. It may work at times, but I don't like the amount of risk in that situation. Despite that the third hit in Smoke's Enhanced Teleport Punch hits overhead, why would they need to crouch-block it when they can block while standing? That's where you need to watch your meter.

If you knock a target out of the air with a jump-punch, you can time a Smoke Bomb when they fall close to the ground and get a combo off of it. This'll take some practice to get down, but will be valuable in a fight. If you'd rather not chance this, stick with the jumpkick to either air throw or Teleport Punch.

Now, as far as the match-up for Smoke versus Cyber Sub-Zero goes, I don't have any accurate information on that. I could try playing Brant's Cyber Sub-Zero with my Smoke and see what I can dig up, but I did kinda fall out of using the character so it'll be a while before I pick him back up. I can definitely tell you this much, however...

The biggest weakness to Cyber Sub-Zero is a character who can zone him out. Smoke can do that. Zone like crazy! The blue cyborg is hardly equipped for such situations, despite that he has such tools of his own.
 

Pig Of The Hut

Day 0 Phenomenal Dr. Fate and Darkseid player
First of all, LMFAO at "BeerGayED" and "Pig of the Slut." Fuckin' hilarious!

On to the criticism.

Your Smoke is good and you've demonstrated a good ability to punish some specials on block, but you sometimes drop your combos during the process of punishment. You can't afford to miss out on any damage if you want to win the fight. Be sure you get those practiced up. Also, if you punish your opponent with 2 to 1 to Smoke Bomb whilst on the ground, you can add a bounce (or neutral jump-punch) to lengthen the combo and add to the damage. It can be done midscreen and at the wall.

Watch for the Wake-Up attacks. Thanks to the recent patch, it's tougher to snuff 'em out even with low pokes, thus you'll want to be careful when you close the distance with Smoke's Teleport Punch after you knock the target to the ground...if they time it correctly, a Wake-Up can thwart your attempt to keep 'em under the pressure. If you choose to teleport after a knockdown, turn it into a true 50/50 by blocking afterwards and see if you can anticipate their Wake-Up. If you don't see them doing that often, pressure away with 3 to d1 to 2.

Speaking of pressure, did you know you can dash-cancel Smoke's Shake? You can mix that into some pressure strings in an effort to intimidate them, just like how you can with his Phase Towards and Phase Away abilities. However, like with Raiden's teleport mix-ups, this isn't very safe, so be sure you use this move sparingly. And don't forget to mix in his R1 and leg sweep so that you might trick them into blocking low, leaving them vulnerable to an overhead, or they won't block at all and they're free game.

If you choose to block from a distance, crouch-block a lot so that you can cover your bases more. At the same time, zone them out with his Phase Away if you have to and toss a Smoke Ball now and then, but if they anticipate your bomb correctly and manage to jump it, you're highly punishable, so do watch yourself.

His low pokes. Those are very important to his game, his d1 and d3 in particular. They will help you with pressure immensely. Abuse them! ...but not against some characters like Reptile, as his dash might be able to punish it if the player is smart.

When inputting Smoke's b2 to 3, be careful that you do not rush with the inputs. I commonly see Smoke players phasing away by accident when they move to do this and thus give up an opportunity to punish with a combo. Train your hands not to rebel against you.

Control the jumping more. There are many counters against it, Smoke's Enhanced Shake being one of them.

The random Teleport Punches are not that wise, even on Wake-Up. Gain some control over them. It may work at times, but I don't like the amount of risk in that situation. Despite that the third hit in Smoke's Enhanced Teleport Punch hits overhead, why would they need to crouch-block it when they can block while standing? That's where you need to watch your meter.

If you knock a target out of the air with a jump-punch, you can time a Smoke Bomb when they fall close to the ground and get a combo off of it. This'll take some practice to get down, but will be valuable in a fight. If you'd rather not chance this, stick with the jumpkick to either air throw or Teleport Punch.

Now, as far as the match-up for Smoke versus Cyber Sub-Zero goes, I don't have any accurate information on that. I could try playing Brant's Cyber Sub-Zero with my Smoke and see what I can dig up, but I did kinda fall out of using the character so it'll be a while before I pick him back up. I can definitely tell you this much, however...

The biggest weakness to Cyber Sub-Zero is a character who can zone him out. Smoke can do that. Zone like crazy! The blue cyborg is hardly equipped for such situations, despite that he has such tools of his own.

DAMN YOU!!!

:)