Now being a Ryu player, I watched Daigo's matches very intently. Lets be honest, there aren't too many better to learn from then the guy who has the best record in Japan. The first thing to be in awe of is that Daigo has an amazing ability to read his opponent's. From psychic dragon punches, to psychic hurricane kicks, Daigo shows that he can read his opponent's tendencies and habits in a matter of one round. The set of videos were very entertaining, however there was one thing that I took out of this set of videos that has changed the way that I play.
The match that I was very focused on was Nemo vs Daigo, a Chun/Ryu matchup. I watched this match very closely as I personally have troubles with Deezo's Chun every time we play. I figured that maybe by watching Daigo and how he plays the match, I could get an idea of what I am doing wrong. After watching Daigo, it all became clear...I think that not only did the Chun/Ryu match became clear, however matches that I have trouble with in general became clear. It's something so basic and logical that I don't see why I couldn't have come to this realization myself. All in all, it had to do with the simple idea of limiting options.
In every one of Daigo's matches, Daigo limited his opponent's options to a degree that the opponent became dumb founded, and had no other way to play. Against Itazan, Daigo uses hadokens at a very close range to limit Zangief's pokes, lariat's and even ex green hand. Against Joe (Viper), Daigo goes uses neutral jump mp to stop Viper from flame kick'ing around. By doing this Viper has very few options to gain ground as she does this best in the air. Now these may seem like very basic ways to limit an opponent's options, however it brings me to the Fuudo (Ryu) and Nemo (Chun) matches.
Lets look at these 2 characters really quickly. Chun has incredible mixup, it's pretty much where most of her damage comes from. At the same time, by staying at full screen/half screen distance she can use kikoken's and pokes to maintain a good set plan to obtain knockdowns. Simply put, her ground game is solid enough to where it makes the opponent NEED to think of ways to get in on her. At the same time, Chun's anti airs are very lack luster and sometimes unreliable. Now lets look at Ryu. Ryu has devastating combo's at close ranges, however unless he hits them, his options are very limited after a block string. At full screen ranges he has a good hadoken that can zone his opponent's with. His pokes are par at best, meaning that he'll trade (or be beaten) with any other character who has better pokes then him. All in all, his main source of damage comes from his hard hitting combo's.
So now, we are brought back to the Daigo matches. Lets talk about Daigo vs Fuudo (the Ryu player). Now Fuudo makes it apparent that he gets his damage from the inside (just like I said earlier). So therefore, it's safe to say that Fuudo's prime situation would be to be pressuring his opponent. So what does Daigo do? He keeps him out via hadoken's. Fuudo's only option is to throw hadoken's back or take a risk and hurricane kick over them. In the match, Fuudo decides to throw hadoken's back, however Daigo (who plans, baits, and reads his opponent) is able to read some of the time's that Fuudo throws hadoken's and jumps in at just the right time to combo. All in all, Fuudo's goal was to get inside...but was fine with remaining outside, however Daigo made it so that he limited Fuudo's options to get inside, and forced Fuudo to play an outside game in which at times he (Daigo) capitalized on.
So this brings us to the Daigo/Nemo (Chun) match. During this match, Nemo controls a lot of the play field by good pokes and kikoken's. However you'll notice that Daigo wins by playing an up close battle, something that Chun has a very hard time with. Daigo uses a lot of jump ins to close distance since he knows that Chun's anti airs aren't very good. However during the second round the majority of the match is played from half/full screen distance. At this range Daigo has quite a bit of trouble, his hadoken's don't really do much to help him in this situation, and he doesn't jump in much because at a full screen range. Also, at this range Chun's anti airs have a bit more validity. Basically, since Nemo fought more of an outside battle, Daigo loses this 2nd round. Since Ryu can't cope with Chun's pokes or kikoken's, Ryu can't win from outside. In the last round, Daigo turns it into a close up match once again by jumping in more, and eventually takes the match.
After watching these matches, I realized the importance of how to play an opponent based off of their habits mixed with solid matchup knowledge. Take for example Guile, a character who uses sonic booms and zoning as his main tool to deal damage and create opportunity. Now if a player was pressuring Guile during the majority of the match, it's safe to say that this limits the way that Guile needs to play. He needs to figure out a different way of dealing damage and figure out also how to get out of this pressure. At the same time, there are different ways to play Guile...Say that I come across a Guile who likes to pressure and rush down more then he likes to zone. In this case, it would be imperative for me to make a decision to try and out zone the Guile player from rushing me down, or possibly play to this player's rush down style. By knowing the player's tendencies on how he rushes down, and combining it with the knowledge of the matchup that you have as a player, one could build a solid strategy and plan out exactly HOW to fight this type of style of play.
Here's another quick example. Lets talk about matchups for Ryu. Lets look at 5 cast members (out of random): Blanka, Chun, Viper, Abel, Bison. Now, lets look at how these characters do their damage...better yet, not so much how they do their damage, but where do these characters want to be in a match? What is their prime position? With Blanka, he wants to be full/mid screen. With Chun she wants to be up close however can do very well from full/mid screen. Viper wants to fight up close. Abel wants to be up close. Bison can fight from afar, however does best when he pressures, thus saying he wants to be up close can be a pretty good deduction. Now take into where these characters want to be, and fight to their opposite. If Blanka wants to fight from full/mid screen, it would be smart of me to put him out of his comfort zone and fight him up close. If Abel wants in, I have to do my best to keep him out. Chun does well from outside? Fight Chun up close. Bison wants in and does most of his damage from inside? Keep him out.
By playing to your opponent's tendencies AND to the matchup, one can build a strategy for any type of play style.
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