Author: Lance "Tarnot" Hood

On top of being one of the only fighters who brings a knife to a fist fight, Cody is also known for his outstanding counter-hit game in Ultra Street Fighter IV. Not only does the perpetually bored brawler dish out some very real damage numbers once he scores a counter-hit, he also has plenty of ways to set up these situations for himself.

In the video below from GroundedSF, you’ll find a collection of counter-hit combos that follow after the buttons most likely to interrupt opponents. As we’ve seen from previous videos, some of these situations will only come up once in a million matches, but there are plenty of options that will come in handy on a (much) more routine basis as well.

Source: GroundedSF

Start the weekend off right with this collection of week one Omega Mode technology from around the community. We’ve got some videos featuring characters like C. Viper and T. Hawk who haven’t received much attention since the update dropped, so be sure to check those out!

Everyone has seen top Ibuki players like HORI|sako bust out full Tsumuji loops during tournaments, but the loops offered up by Omega Mode put some unlikely buttons to use to make similar things happen.

Her crouching strong, as an example, was previously used almost exclusively for spacing, whiff punishing and buffering moves against overly-aggressive opponents. Additionally, she has gained more useful links outside of the usual buttons, as well as some of the standard fare that everyone else picked up like new EX properties, goofy juggles and even an air throw, all of which make it on to the screen in this footage from Qelaion.

Yesterday we featured a Juri combo that looked like it came straight out of Marvel vs. Capcom 3, and today we’ve got another short collection of similar strings from the villainess. Delephantz has compiled a quick series of combos that show off some of the fighter’s new properties to help get the ideas flowing. They also included a reset option off a double focus attack that can lead into tricky situations for defenders.

This Chun-Li combo compilation from Ruben Grajeda puts the fighter’s feet to good use in leg loop after glorious leg loop. These aren’t quite the loops that we see from combo masters like Desk, but they bring in some of her new options for results that live up to the Omega Mode standard.

Up next, JusticeSoulTuna brings us two combo videos: one for the completely re-worked Omega Decapre and a second for the currently-elusive Omega C. Viper. We’ve already seen a multi-character combo video from JusticeSoulTuna, but these two videos take a much deeper look at what these two characters have to offer in the new mode.

And to close things out, we have a T. Hawk combo playlist from Gonzalo Torres that explores the grappler’s new offerings in the Omega update. Though each combo has been split into its own video–we’re told because that was much easier to handle than trying to make one longer piece with a lack of video editing software and proper recording equipment–there are plenty of good things to see, so if you’re mourning the loss of T. Hawk’s gun (rest in piece, incredibly fast Condor Spire) maybe these combos will cheer you up.

Send us all the crazy stuff you’ve found in Ultra Street Fighter IV’s new Omega Mode via our tip line!

Sources: Qelaion, delephantz, Ruben Grajeda, JusticeSoulTuna and Gonzalo Torres

After spending a few days with Omega Mode, standard Ultra Street Fighter IV combos may sound like a distant memory obscured by the fog of two bar EX specials that mimic supers and other move properties that we never thought we’d see. But just when we’d nearly become forever lost in that fog, pepopulo appeared to burn away that fog with unreal combos from the standard game.

Unlike similar videos we’ve seen over the past couple of days, all of the content that pepopulo has included in this combo video was recorded before 1.04 dropped. That means these combos have been around for months and many of the juggles, as well as some of the links, haven’t seen much (if any) use. The combos include insane Chun-Li Kikoken loops, Ryu landing four aerial Tatsus, Oni breaking out five Demon Slashes, and a whole lot more.

Commentors have dubbed pepopulo “Desk Jr.,” which seems rather fitting. Check out the reel below to see if you agree!

Source: Pepopulo

Lots of minor tweaks made it into the 1.04 patch for Ultra Street Fighter IV, and though Omega Mode has proven to be a lot of fun, we can’t forget about examining the things that may have an impact on competitive play. One of those small changes saw the added ability for an oiled Hakan to perform a crossup with his medium kick. Initially, this doesn’t sound like much of a big deal. Plenty of characters have cross-up buttons, right?

Well, as it turns out, Hakan’s moveset, which already lends itself to shenanigans, is the perfect place for an attack like this. Not only can it be used for standard ambiguous jump-ins, but as sudafreekan demonstrates in the video below, the technology pairs quite well with Oil Slides and Oil Dives to offer the greased-up grappler some particularly nasty setups.

Has oiled Hakan crossed over into the realm of “best characters” yet? It’s impossible to say right now, but if you (like me) were already afraid of the Turkish tycoon when he donned his glistening liquid armor, there’s now even more reason to be afraid.

Source: sudafreekan via UltraDavid

Frame traps have been hailed as one of the most important tools to learn in Ultra Street Fighter IV, and that’s a pretty understandable opinion. They blow up button mashers and poke holes in crouch-tech spam–or misplaced crouch-techs–and that’s where most of their power lies. In a game where the defensive technique has become so prominent, it is crucial to learn good ways to counter it in order to secure victory.

But without previous experience setting up a dummy to train these sorts of things, it’s difficult to actually practice frame traps outside of matches. There are a number of ways to do it–in the past, I’ve personally recorded a dummy performing a frame trap timing after a knock down with my character of choice, after which I took control of the knocked-down party to test my timing. There’s nothing really wrong with doing it that way, but all the hopping from character to character, controlling the dummy, controlling the target, flipping and flopping around–it gets confusing.

Using that pattern, becomes hard to maintain what I like to call “training momentum,” which is that state that you get in when you’re working on a combo and you just have to finish it. Do two hits, drop it, hit reload; four hits, drop, reload; one hit, reload; until you get the whole thing. Then you repeat it until your hands nearly fall off. This momentum keeps the necessary inputs and timings fresh on your mind, but when you’re constantly swapping from controlling the aggressor to the defender in frame trap situations, that momentum can never truly be gained.

To help remedy this and provide a much more fluid method of training frame traps, BLACKU STAR recorded how they like to train these necessary offensive options. It’s pretty simple: knock the dummy down, pause the game, hit “memory,” set the dummy to record, pop out a crouch tech, swap back to control of your character, hit reload, and let the fun begin!

Much like optimal combo training, you can reload the situation for easy practice reps until you’re sure that no crouch tech will ever penetrate your impeccable offense.

Source: BLACKU STAR

Akuma’s Raging Demon is one of the most iconic moves in the Street Fighter universe, but it can also be particularly difficult to land. Whether opponents jump out of harm’s way or simply chuck some plasma into Akuma’s chest as soon as the super flash happens, it’s easy to see that setups are almost required to reliably take opponents into the dark.

In the footage below, CLxJames shows off a handful of helpful setups that will catch plenty of players off guard in Ultra Street Fighter iV. Many of these setups involve resets after a short Tatsu, while others involve giving yourself frame advantage through specific normals to allow a safe dash-in.

Whether you’re a veteran Akuma player or only recently started dabbling in the Satsui no Hado, this video is a great place to learn creative ways to show your foes what being a demon is all about.

Source: CLxJames

It’s not quite a wavedash, but it’s likely the closest thing to Melee’s much-loved mechanic that we’re going to see in Super Smash Bros. for Wii U and 3DS.

A perfect pivot allows characters to turn quickly in place through the proper canceling of a dash with the flick of the stick in the opposite direction. As the name implies, this maneuver requires perfect execution in order to perform, but the payoff makes it worth programming into muscle memory.

Why’s it so useful? Well, lots of reasons. If an attack is performed during the pivot, that attack will gain directional momentum and allow for a sort of sliding attack to come out. This works for specials as well as tilts and smashes; you can even perform a perfect pivot grab. This sort of slide can be used for everything from positioning to baiting to allowing punishes that wouldn’t otherwise be possible.

As with everything else, the slide distance out of a perfect pivot varies from character to character, with Captain Falcon having the longest range and Jigglypuff having the shortest.

For more details including practical application examples, as well as a full list of perfect pivot slide distances, check out the video below.

Source: My Smash Corner via Smash Boards

Until you understand a character’s normal attacks, you don’t really understand the character. That seems pretty self-evident, but the truth is that many characters have plenty of buttons that can fill all sorts of different roles and lead to different results because of their properties. Sometimes these basic tools, which should be the foundation of any character’s play, get overlooked in favor of flashy combos or vortex setups; I was personally guilty of the latter for longer than I’d like to admit.

Decapre players should keep this lesson in mind when they check out the Ultra Street Fighter IV tutorial below, which focuses entirely on the masked fighter’s normal attacks. You’ll find frame data and hit boxes, as well as how to apply each button in combat. Frame traps, block strings, footsies tips and yes, even some setups make it on to the reel–she is a reset-heavy character after all. You’ll also find a handful of short combos that are used to demonstrate certain situations and provide basic follow-ups for properly-applied normals.

Many of our readers will quickly notice that the tutorial isn’t in English. Luckily, it does have English subtitles and most of the important information comes in the form of standard combo notation, so nothing should be lost.

Source: BR CH3RNOBYL

It’s no question that we’ve seen some amazing and hilarious things come out of Ultra Street Fighter IV’s Omega Mode, but there were plenty of balance tweaks that took place in the 1.04 patch outside of the new edition select that have yet to be fully explored.

In an effort to remedy that, Doopliss sat down with some of the affected members of the cast and created combos crazy enough to feel like they belong in Omega Mode, but that could very possibly soon grace tournament streams and ranked matches. That is, if everyone spontaneously develops robot-like execution.

Everything from Decapre stunning Guy and Dhalsim hit-confirming like you wouldn’t believe to a tool-assisted Guile combo that will make you need a cold shower make it onto the reel. Even if Omega Mode isn’t your thing, Doopliss proves that there’s still a lot of fresh fun to have on the main side of the patch.

Source: Dooplis