Ok TYM users I have come to the conclusion that ALL sonya players are downplayers and don't have the experience with sonya that they should have. Now I am not saying you sonya players are bad because that would be completely wrong. But there are many variables that I see which can conclude why you guys are downplaying your character so much. Top sonya players like Death Riu Gamerblake and showtime are all great players but are held back by many things which hold them back from what I believe would be a COMPLETE sonya player. Now for anybody who hasn't played F0xy's sonya back when he mained her, hasn't played/seen a complete sonya player.
Death- Took a huge break from playing this game. Not sure if he has the offline scene to play with others but taking a big of a break as he did can really mess your game up.
Showtime- Just picked up sonya prolly didn't learn all the MUs he would like yet but IMO prolly tied from 1st best sonya along with death and riu
Riu- hardly plays the game but still a top sonya from the little experience he has in tournament. IMO Riu would by far be the best if he just had more time to play the game because he has exploited sonya the most and has been doing it since the game came out. Prolly the only sonya main who has been playing her since release date
Gamerblake- Dude you play too much online sonya what else can I say. I've seen it, I've played it. Definitely a great sonya player but online helps you get away with too much d1(blocked)-MS mixups and standing 4(blocked) MS mixups or cartwheel.
One thing sonya players don't have, the patience to sit back and lame the shit out of most of the cast. There are only a few characters that sonya has to rushdown obviously but sonya is most dangerous when shes making you play her game. Many sonyas come in with a rushdown d4 style of sonya. You guys ever notice why sonya players lose? Because they commit to something unsafe because of CARELESS rushdown. The most overwhelming sonya is a sonya who plays a patient footsie game and keeps you constantly guessing, NOT a sonya who comes in with d4 d4 d4 which can easily be stuffed with d3 with most characters or even advancing normals like f3 with JC. People are usually shitting themselves because they don't want sonya near them so they go to desperate measures and do things like unsafe armor, jump in, dash d3-jump over.
Sonya has the best footsie tools in terms of normals in the game tied with kitana but all have some sort of safe pushback/fast recovery or cancel into MS pressure options which are all safe and can go into further mixups like ex cartwheel. There are too many things that many people leave out that is very critical in sonya gameplay:
- Dive kicking-Deep jump in kicks
- Ex cartwheeling cross overs
- Using block string cancel to MS setups that you can bait for armor usage and answer back with an excarthweel..... example of this is 114 MS and lets say the player is a JC player and wants to do an ex nutpunch, you can cancel the MS into ex cartwheel kick or cancel and block and full combo punish. Excartwheel can be used to bait EX SC from Kenshi or maybe an EX dash punch or overhead from Jax
- Using MS 2 to whiff punish anything out of D4 range. Can also be used to followup an energy ring on hit because they cant jump they must block and if blocked it spaces you out into d4 range which after that you can just back up and play footsies or go for d4 mixups. Whichever floats your boat
- Ex divekick- people are eager to punish dive kick on block. Other properties people don't realize is that ex dive kick acts as an overhead, so if your duck blocking you can lose about 10% health along with about 1-2% chip from MS 2 followup
- Use of MS B4's pushback do bait d3's/d1's to get another d4 MS mixup in
I used to main sonya and I played her since the game came out and prolly dropped her around Jan 2012 which was prolly a bad idea. She is WAY to good to not make CONSISTENT top 8 finishes. Its freaken ridiculous how bad sonya players are downplaying their character. I almost feel like using her again to prove how stupid she really is. Maybe I won't use her maybe I can just make tech videos to show you different ways to deal with different situational things.
I'm only asking for your opinions on this. I MAY NOT main sonya just because you guys all vote for her but I will provide videos if you guys like that option because I know ALOT about sonya.
DISCUSS
EDITED: Also another tactic that more sonyas should be using that I forgot to post in the bullet statements is D1 EX cartwheel. Only player who uses this is death. Best way to bait out a counterpoke and get a combo for it when they are expecting you to d1 out of pressure.
LOL
