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Raiden Match-Ups Thread

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
I like staggering them with B12 into teleport or following up with more attacks.
 

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
I like to get far, punish his ass once they do fireballs then once I get in their head they get desperate to get in and do random flying kicks lol. LK is deadly up close but if you keep them far or outzone him, they get inpatient I've noticed.
 

Marinjuana

Up rock incoming, ETA 5 minutes
Why not 121 KB?
You can punish low fireball with a standing string, and you can punish low fireball's amplify portion with a standing string, but you can't do both at once. You have to make the read on whether or not he will do the amplified fireball.

With D2, you cover both options 100% of the time, at least from the F34~low fireball option.
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
Tip for Scorpion: If you roll past a death spin on wake up you cannot F4 punish from behind because it hits you. So you can only punish it using a projectile. Such a balanced character NRS :)
 

Barrogh

Meta saltmine
That requires that they do it outta nowhere on your wakeup though.

And perhaps there's still a timing for that, but I'm not sure.
 
Sad about discharge Nerf, but the raijin buffs are cool.

Really removed the flavor of 4 frame reversal. 6f is still great on some matchups, but you can't go straight stupid anymore on block strings.

I feel like raijin is going to be extra lame still which is exciting since he can hit confirm now off b1 for free now which is what everyone was asking for.
 

Raidenwins

Raiden Practitioner
Sad about discharge Nerf, but the raijin buffs are cool.

Really removed the flavor of 4 frame reversal. 6f is still great on some matchups, but you can't go straight stupid anymore on block strings.

I feel like raijin is going to be extra lame still which is exciting since he can hit confirm now off b1 for free now which is what everyone was asking for.
This is just me spewing theory, since I don't play Raijin, but from watching gameplay videos of vDalphanate (the only competitive Raiden main as of right now) i feel Raijin still struggles against most characters and especially against zoners. Watch the first match against Cetrion in that 2+ hours of (mostly) Raijin KL play YouTube video from vDalphanate and you'll see what i mean. He got thoroughly destroyed.

In my opinion Thunder Wave is still the superior variation overall. The teleport is just too powerful for anything Raijin has to overcome. With the teleport, Thunder Wave Raiden cannot be cornered and he can almost instantly close the distance to any opponent. Those two things alone are enough to make Thunder Wave the superior variation. He can also play mind games with far, close, in place, and Amplified teleports.

In addition, Thunder Wave has better combo potential. Storm Cell is easier to follow-up with pretty much anything for combo extension, while with Raijin you are limited to F2, F4, or dash forward into an extension. In other words, the execution is higher with Raijin which could lead to higher rate of dropping combos, which in turns leads to less damage, loss of turn, and potential punishment from the opponent. Plus, with Raijin you always have to have Quick Charge activated to be able to do bigger combos, which is yet another thing to worry about during a match.

Another downside to Raijin is that he always has to have Quick Charge active to play his best game. That means you have to find ways to activate it safely and in many cases that can result in loss opportunity for incurring damage. For example, i saw several times in vDalphanate's video above how he did B1 into Quick Charge when he could have followed-up with 2 into combo or block string for chip damage. Plus, Quick Charge expires in 15 seconds, so you have to constantly manage that thing.

On the plus side, Raijin with QC active does have access to Discharge, which is great for interrupting the gameplan of rush down characters. Also, he has a really good full screen Anti Air with Summon Lightning. Those two things are just not enough to put him over Thunder Wave though.
 
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Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
This is just me spewing theory, since I don't play Raijin, but from watching gameplay videos of vDalphanate (the only competitive Raiden main as of right now) i feel Raijin still struggles against most characters and especially against zoners. Watch the first match against Cetrion in that 2+ hours of (mostly) Raijin KL play YouTube video from vDalphanate and you'll see what i mean. He got thoroughly destroyed.

In my opinion Thunder Wave is still the superior variation overall. The teleport is just too powerful for anything Raijin has to overcome. With the teleport, Thunder Wave Raiden cannot be cornered and he can almost instantly close the distance to any opponent. Those two things alone are enough to make Thunder Wave the superior variation. He can also play mind games with far, close, in place, and Amplified teleports.

In addition, Thunder Wave has better combo potential. Storm Cell is easier to follow-up with pretty much anything for combo extension, while with Raijin you are limited to F2, F4, or dash forward into an extension. In other words, the execution is higher with Raijin which could lead to higher rate of dropping combos, which in turns leads to less damage, loss of turn, and potential punishment from the opponent. Plus, with Raijin you always have to have Quick Charge activated to be able to do bigger combos, which is yet another thing to worry about during a match.

Another downside to Raijin is that he always has to have Quick Charge active to play his best game. That means you have to find ways to activate it safely and in many cases that can result in loss opportunity for incurring damage. For example, i saw several times in vDalphanate's video above how he did B1 into Quick Charge when he could have followed-up with 2 into combo or block string for chip damage. Plus, Quick Charge expires in 15 seconds, so you have to constantly manage that thing.

On the plus side, Raijin with QC active does have access to Discharge, which is great for interrupting the gameplan of rush down characters. Also, he has a really good full screen Anti Air with Summon Lightning. Those two things are just not enough to put him over Thunder Wave though.
Raijin does struggle at overcoming zoning. But in certain MUs like Liu Kang you can overcome 3/4 of his options after F43 simply by having QC and reversal punishing for 13% each time. So I don’t think any one variation is superior or inferior at the moment. They complement each other fairly well. Raiden’s main problems are still present though, and each variation can solve it to a certain extent. Up close with buff on Raijin can end everything in -5 with push back and pay neutral very well. At far thunderwave grants access to teleport to bypass zoning and establish your own zoning.

Raiden also suffers from: why play him when other characters do what he does better? But that isn’t really a core issue that makes him bad. Just makes him not the first choice for tournaments.
 
Jacqui is an amazing matchup for Raiden TW. I very narrowly lost to a Jacqui player in the top 100 the other day and I'm ranked wayy lower than that.

Keep far teleporting and air-superman flying away from her and if you time those right she has very limited options to get in from distance which you can punish.
 

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
There's more competitive Raiden's out there than that Daph dude, two guys on my list who are Demi God. I myself got to DG using mostly Raiden, and that shit wasn't easy. He can be competitive, that's not the issue it's just an uphill battle the issue is making him viable so more people can be. At any rate, match ups that either go in Raiden's favor or are good for him vs Jade, Cetrion, Kano, Scorpion, Sub-Zero, Skarlet, Shang Tsung to name a few in TW at least, his teleport nullifies their zoning game bigtime. I would not recommend him vs. Jax, Jacqui, LK, etc the really fast characters up close. I've beaten tough Jacquis and Jax's with him but it's a pain in the ass.

If you like Raiden and want to deal or overcome zoning, go with TW over Rajin. The teleport makes all the difference.
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
From what I've gleaned with a short set, Raijin VS V1 Joker seems like a pretty ok MU for us.

Most threatening zoning tool is Low shot, but a well-timed DB4 projectile can cleanly beat it out, and we have better trades because they waste meter if we interrupt it. We also inherently take much less chip compared to other characters so it improves our odds at full screen.
He has good footsies but so do we, just need to watch out for parry/gunshot mix at F4 range, but if they try it up close can probably wait for a bit and full combo punish with B31 (doesn't parry lows + gun cancel is a whopping 43 frames recovery). D4 works wonders at mid range to counter Joker's F2, and we get free pressure after D4 on hit.
I haven't tested out all his strings yet, but we can threaten discharge off most of his strings even if they are safe, and when we punish his unsafe mix we hit harder than he does without KBs.

Overall I say Raijin does pretty well against V1, will post more on the MU after I get more experience and testing
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
V3 Joker: Our F4 can punish Joker’s BF2 if we crouch block it. However it is quite tight. Not sure about stand block yet, needs more testing. However this bring us into a much more favourable position against V3 Joker.
 

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
I only played 2 Jokers with TW Raiden so far, they seem hesitant to pick Joker vs Raiden, this one guy after I managed against his Joker went right to Scorp in KL the other day. He was trying to zone me out but I just teleported and punished him for it.
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
I only played 2 Jokers with TW Raiden so far, they seem hesitant to pick Joker vs Raiden, this one guy after I managed against his Joker went right to Scorp in KL the other day. He was trying to zone me out but I just teleported and punished him for it.
TW can probably TP on reaction to V1 low shot and F4 punish
 

MKF30

Fujin and Ermac for MK 11
TW can probably TP on reaction to V1 low shot and F4 punish
Yep, that's one of the things I did. He used the Batman doll move where he shoots 3 shots as soon as he planted it I tped and him with the 121 KB. Jokers like a whole bag of jokes(no pun intended) the boinky thing, the gun move, cane attacks. Getting used to facing a new character is always fun yet challenging.
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
raijin can also just electric flight over clown princes low shots.
Yeah he can, and get the KB punish. I forgot to add that. Thanks. Though I’d say to reserve KB for getting the life lead back, and we can interrupt with DB4 projectile well enough normally. V1’s zoning really isn’t all that much compared to ours
 
Yeah he can, and get the KB punish. I forgot to add that. Thanks. Though I’d say to reserve KB for getting the life lead back, and we can interrupt with DB4 projectile well enough normally. V1’s zoning really isn’t all that much compared to ours
im totally not up to date though, did they change the electric flight kb? i think i quit before the first patch.
 

Mandolore1123

Man of Science Who Wields the Living Lightning
im totally not up to date though, did they change the electric flight kb? i think i quit before the first patch.
No they didn’t. Still need to get it at max range, but it’s somewhat useful against joker since we can get this KB consistently flying over his low shot from full screen