Street Fighter Footsies Handbook, Chapter 9

Since jumping is such a slow committment and since ground counters to crossup attempts are much quicker than the air time required to reach crossup position, effective crossup setups are more about anticipation than reaction. Due to sheer damage potential, one well-timed ambiguous crossup can turn the tide of an entire battle. Finding reliable ways to create such opportunities is essential to any offensive-minded gameplan, sometimes to the point of passing up guaranteed damage in favor of arranging a convenient crossup.

Element 27: Eliminate the opponent’s capacity to anti-air by knocking them down first. In fact, one of the primary goals of footsies is to land a sweep or psychic DP precisely for the purpose of securely jumping over them as they stand up. Simple, right?

Element 28: Bait your opponent into committing a slow attack and jump over them as it whiffs. This method is slightly more complicated and considerably riskier, but there are several ways to get it done. You can tick with light attacks to push them into position, then fake a throw and go for the crossup as their counterthrow misses. You can catch them focusing too heavily on ground footsies and jump over their c.MK pokes while they’re fishing to land a super move. You can even poke them from a safe distance until they get frustrated enough to become predictable with their counterpokes, then jump over one as soon as you feel out their rhythm.

Element 29: Do something chaotic then go for a crossup while confusion throws off their reflexes long enough to get them into trouble. Maintain that pressure for as long as you can keep them off balance, or until they gain enough meter to tilt the risk vs reward scales too far in their favor. Back off when you sense desperation, or at least switch to attack patterns which are safe from their most tempting comeback scenario.

Element 30: Shut down an opponent’s crossup attempt with a vertically aimed normal move, then time your jump to catch them with a crossup as they land on their feet. On a related note, whoever wins an air-to-air encounter usually lands first by a large enough margin to immediately rejump for a crossup as the reeling opponent descends. Another alternative is to wait until someone jumps from long distance, then jump over them as they come down. This works especially well in games with air blocking and air parry mechanisms, which give players an incentive to forgo attacking.

As you can see, there are countless ways to go about setting up crossups, depending on the character matchup and your opponent’s tendencies. It’s just a matter of developing a strong enough ground game to train your opponent to stop expecting you to jump.

At the beginning of a match, everyone tries to stay out of crossup range or to refrain from using slow attacks at that distance. Once you catch them slipping into that spot and behaving dangerously, that’s when you should start looking for your chance to cross them up – without making your intentions obvious!

5 thoughts on “Street Fighter Footsies Handbook, Chapter 9

  1. Maj Post author

    I didn’t want to clutter up the article with this stuff but i should probably clarify a few points. First of all, the term “ambiguous crossup” means a jump attack timed perfectly as your jump arc carries you over the opponent’s center. The objective is to create a 50/50 situation where they have to guess which direction to block. Crossups are difficult to block in general, but this is how you level the playing field against opponents who are good at blocking deep ones.

    Second, this is the second footsies article i’ve written about jumping. Now you may be asking yourself what jumping has to do with ground footsies. Well, crossups are absolutely a part of footsies – provided that you stack them on top of a solid ground game foundation. In other words, i believe you need solid ground fundamentals before you can spot the right moments to jump. Think of ground offense is your main weapon. Crossups (along with sweeps and psychic DP’s) are your endgame tactics, to use once you’ve got your opponent figured out.

    Finally, regarding the ComboFiend vs Kim match, you might be asking why it’s a good example considering how long C-Blanka kept attacking raged K-Sagat. Well, if you don’t know CvS2, the biggest problem with dealing with K-Groove is that if you let them have that entire rage timer to land a super, they’ll do it. They’ll find an opening or they’ll guard crush you and they’ll do it. So the trick is to occupy as much of that time span as you can, so that they only have a fraction of it to work with.

    However, you absolutely must back off towards the end because there’s no reason whatsoever for them not to throw out a random super as the timer winds down. All top tier K-Groove characters have safe lvl3 supers which cause insane amounts of damage, so the risk vs reward ratio practically forces them to go for it. You’re much better off playing it safe because if you can hold out for five seconds, you’ll be back in control.

  2. Kareeem

    Eh it sounds redundant by now but excellent stuff Maj. Especially combined with video examples. I swear this stuff is gonna be read for years to come by people, new and veterans alike.

    I liked the mediocre punishment to set up a crossup in the introduction examples and element 29 has always been a personal fav.

  3. Kareeem

    lol btw the redundant refers to the constant praise, not the articles I just read my comment and felt it might be read the wrong way.

  4. Maj Post author

    Thank you sir. You’re right though, praise isn’t necessary. Great players have been using most of these tactics since i can’t even say when; certainly before i ever found the tournament scene.

    I’m just doing my best to put it into writing because this stuff happens to be my favorite part of competitive play.

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