Ein video and critique thread

UpSideDownGRUNT

Well-Known Member
Been awhile...
old replay from July

old replay from August

most recent Ein replay

I'm slowly getting back into the swing of things, but I'm definitely missing something
 

UprisingJC

Well-Known Member
Hi guys, here's the top 3 from the last tourney I went to. I'd like to have your opinions on it. Things I've noticed is that I'm not enough slow escaping.

Anyway here it is, thanks in advance.


1.Lots of 1K6P usage. Not sure if it was because of the fact that Jann Lee has a low damage output from his holds except the high kick and mid punch ones that grant him some guaranteed hits after them, your opponent never tried to counter your 1K6P. Maybe it has something to do with player's playstyle as some players, including myself, are more likely to counter it as it's way too predictable. Similar moves may be like Hitomi's 3pk and Jacky's 6pp as they only have 1 hit level after the 1st hit: Highs.

People barely throw out 1KK or 1KP directly considering that they're unsafe so the only option is 1K6P.

2.He tended to wait for your lows a lot of times, 4PP2K, PP6P2K, 1K6P2K... and mostly focused on mid punch holds and low holds only.
See how many times he countered your 3p, 9p and even 4p+k. You seemed to have used 4p+k 3 times in total and he countered all of them.

3.I didn't see you use Ein's OH in the 4 matches against that Jann Lee player. Weak as his OH's damage output is, sometimes it still can be used. After all you're not facing characters like Tina, Bass or Hayabusa who have devastating throws to punish you for whiffing it.

Just saying what I saw in that vid and expressed my opinion, no offense involved. :p
 
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JayceeChris

Member
Thanks for your answer man.
I use to hold back too much on 1K6P, especially because the second hit is high.
Now I use it more and imo it's definitely one of his best mid range tool. I think it's important to use it even if the second hit is high. After all Ein's offense is risky and hella unsafe (even stupid unsafe on some moves) but sometime you have to take the risk.
I don't think 1KP or 1KK would've help me honeslty, most of the time it's blocked and directly punished.
You're right about the OH, Actually I missed my inputs on a clutch situation (at 5:26, the OH was supposed to come) and I was pretty disappointed after this.
 

Tenryuga

Well-Known Member
1K6P is one of Eins best mid range tools. Because the second hit is high some players will pre-preemptively respond to a whiffed 1K with a crush attack, sidestep or hold that can get whiff punished. Even if they whiff a hold in neutral and you aren't able to whiff punish that hold attempt they are still in recovery so you can move in or do whatever you want.

I only saw your first match Jaycee; I'll watch the rest later. From what I saw you don't strike on the mid hit level during your spacing enough. It's mostly highs and lows. So your opponent can negate most of your spacing with crush attacks, crouching or high holds. The few times you went mid you used H+K which is nice, but slow. You should add 236P, 9P, more 4K, 3K, and P+K more during your spacing. Even though a few of those are unsafe it is well worth it because it allows you to control space better since they can't afford to disrespect your 46P all the time when they have to worry about these moves coming at them.

EDIT: Ok I saw the rest. What I said still stands. Get used to using your mids for whiff punishment more often. Another thing you should get in the habit of is holding at range(The both of us should lol). Our whiff punishers are godlike but there is just some nonsense like Zacks rapid kicks that is annoying as hell to punish at certain ranges. I seriously felt your pain when you were just backing away watching him whiff the kicks like "When is he going to stop the kicks? Can I whiff punish this without getting myself hit?" For stuff like that just hold it. Or take a chance with 6P / 4P. IMO those two are underated moves for spacing.
 
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Zeo

Well-Known Member
@JayceeChris

Ten already reviewed your matches and pretty much everything he said was spot on, now for the opinion of a more offensive Ein player. So the bullet points. I'm going to try to avoid things Ten already touched on.

- A bit too much 1K6P. It's a tool you have to use often due to Ein's small arsenal but I think a bit less of it in the neutral game would serve you well, you were crushed doing it a good few times, a good 1K fakeout would be alright every now and again as well, this however is a tough sale as Ein is so limited you're forced to rely on it due to the unsafety of 1KP and 1KK.

- No OH's?, Ein's Offensive hold admittedly does not do a whole lot of damage, never the less it is a tool that cannot be ignored when you're playing as him. I didn't see a single OH in that first set vs Jann Lee, it's a good tool particularly in close-mid range to catch pokes and after specific free cancel strings. One thing in particular that I noticed you liked to do was 4P2K into pressure and got blown up by P or 6P from Jann or Zack. In these cases you could have OH'ed instead and at worst been clipped on NH instead of CH and been free to block either followup. In the case of a slower attack you're netting HCH damage, it's not full proof but it can typically put you in a better spot than striking all the time. There are very few strings Ein can delay into pressure, so he can become pretty predictable when you do it too frequently.

- Not enough PK after +1. Understandable that you don't want to get predictable with PKK but there were a lot of situations where you were blown up by SS attacks after +1 by going for 3P or PP, in those cases the K in PK would have caught them on CH in the midst of their attempted SS attack, rather than throwing that out you were getting clipped by it almost every time doing something else. There are SS attacks that crush highs but aside from those PK is a decent option after +1, if you're expecting a crush however, naturally you're gravitating toward 3P instead. In the case of expecting step, you can also be more gutsy and 33T after +1. Also you can 2H+K after a CH PK for guaranteed FT if they don't tech up.

- No 1K mixups. It's not the best tool sure, but there was an incredible lack in 1K launchers and mixups after getting your initial stun. Your followups near the wall were pretty nice but you were generally getting mid punch held in a lot of cases and when you did get a launch I'd usually see 3P, 8P, KK or 33K. 1KK and 1KP are good ways to throw off your opponent, get them closer to a wall as well as condition them not to hold 1K6P as much as they normally would. Additionally I didn't see too much WR K either, but I'm not going to nitpick anyone's style. I just think 1K would spice up your post-stun game a good bit. 236P sends the opponent a great distance (for walls!) and 66KKK (After 1KK) damage is no joke.

- Not enough slow escaping. That Jann Lee H+K setup into CB is NOT guaranteed. He got it on you every single time. You have to SE at fastest in order to avoid that so it's not easy, but it's definitely something to work on as it's essentially free damage for the JL player if you aren't on point. So definitely work on that.

- Where's the wall game? The other of 2 things Ein excels at in this game is the ability to harass his opponent at the wall with his guard breaks and fantastic post wall oki game, I saw neither of these things here (for good reason probably) but still the height of Ein's damage is in his incredible knockback and ability to repeatedly send his opponent to the wall, that's definitely something you should incorporate into your strategy on top of whiff punishment. It will force you to play just a tinge more aggressive, but if your opponent catches on to that goal, it only opens up even more yomi possibilities.

Despite all that, that was some of the best Ein play I've ever seen. You are definitely in the top 5 Ein players, no doubt. Keep up the good work and keep improving. 1P should help you out tremendously.

There's some tech that would probably help you out, only a couple of people actually know about all the stuff I've dug up on Ein. @Ten maybe I'll post up his uncovered tech in a topic in a day or so when I'm less busy. You already know it, but the rest of the Ein community (small as we may be) doesn't, maybe it'll help people out.
 

Tenryuga

Well-Known Member
You should post. They need to know of his Oki and Wall game. The might of 1K and 7P shall not go unknown.
 

JayceeChris

Member
Alright guys, I read everything you wrote and I thank you a lot for that.
It seems like the lack of O.H. is something important that I need to work on.
About the Zack gatling kick: I wonder why I never thought about holding it at range while I'm doing it while blocking (considering the opponent delays it). Probably because when I space out I am more focus on causing whiff and punishing instead of holding. Even if the range is small, 4P is pretty good on hit and it's so fast that most people don't slow escape it.
By the way I also sometimes manage to use 9P as a whiff punisher to get a stun.
Besides, I'm all hear about those tech you guys talked about. I don't know any player or channel to watch to inspire me to so I find it pretty difficult to find new techs.
 

UpSideDownGRUNT

Well-Known Member
Here's some tasty new Grunt Ein action for you.

Some self critiques:
  • I relied on 6P+K and 1P waaay too much
  • I was being too reckless, I mean I get blown up a few times just for trying to get a hit in
  • I need alot more practice against walls
 

Tenryuga

Well-Known Member
@UpSideDownGRUNT

1st thing you should do is hit-confirm better. You will get 3P blocked or 1P to hit on NH and then continue attacking which should have resulted in you getting counter blown alot more than what was happening in the vid. There was another time you got H+K blocked then tried to 4H+K.

As for the wall you did 2T > 1K. That setup is actually not good off a PP6PK splat. That one is reserved for 9KK. Nothing is airtight after PP6PK but P whiff > 1K is your best bet.

You overusing 1P was actually not bad in this situation because you guys were on the water. Move crushes, tracks and has that retarded stun on the water so I do not blame you at all for abusing it.

Keep at it.

:ein:
 

UpSideDownGRUNT

Well-Known Member
Yeah, I'm still a bit iffy on the whiff 1K setups, the only ones I seem to be better at is the tech roll setups.

And yeah lol, my hit confirmation is atrocious, I've gotten into the habit of pre buffering attacks online so I have the tendancy of attacking from disadvantage alot due to it.
 

JayceeChris

Member
Hi everyone, here's some match against a friend who's playing Christie now.
Overall I don't think I'm doing that bad but I find the match-up really hard to apprehend.
Her evasive options are too good and I'm having hard time keeping her out because of 6PP.
As usual you guys are welcomed to let me know what you think I should improve.

1st part : http://www.twitch.tv/b0nustage/v/13058651 22:10
2nd part : http://www.twitch.tv/b0nustage/v/13073648 1:51:00

Thanks!
 

Zeo

Well-Known Member
Proud to see people are still trying to incorporate that wall tech into their game even now.
 

XZero264

FSD | Nichol
Premium Donor
Last night on my stream I found 9P is a lovely wakeup crusher (starting to stream myself playing more, been focusing on Ein a lot lately). Can't seem to find the moment myself (pressed for time atm) but if my poor fighting memory serves right it was against a La Mariposa Kasumi in the Circus (edit: Match starts at 37:00, crush at 38:20). I definitely was not prepare for it (I never time crushes right) or I would have used BT 2K6PK instead of just BT K.

http://www.twitch.tv/xzero264/v/18427176
 
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Shodaku

New Member
I'm having a difficult time with the Ein Vs Christie match-up. I've had a ton of such games against one player who beats me roughly 3 to 1, and I'd really appreciate some insight from other players on what else I should be trying against him. Against lesser Christies I can turtle my way to victory, but this particular opponent has a way of getting in close and staying there.

The first video is the closest game I saved a replay of--I clearly see where I made mistakes and probably could have won this one:

I do manage to beat him every now and then, here's one of the winning matches:

And in all fairness to him, there are also plenty of beatdowns sent my way as shown here:

I'm in experimental mode and testing out different ways to fight back against her, in those videos you'll see some of what both worked and failed spectacularly. A few quick notes:

OH: the offensive hold is quite useful against her, I'm still working on getting the timing just right but there's been plenty of times it's pulled her right out of an attacking string.

Low OH: I need to get better at landing this. I saw in Tenryuga's Christie video that he kept nailing her in jak using it, and so far I've only managed it once against this particular Christie. Might be worth practicing against her in training mode.

9P: there was a time I thought 9P was doing work against Christie as I had several matches where I was able to crush and launch her using it. As shown in these videos, though, it's way too inconsistent...I wasn't able to land it once here. I should probably stop trying to use it.

Holds: definitely important, they saved my bacon more than once against him. Since I recorded these I've started labbing Christie so I can learn her strings and get better at holding them.

6K strings, 3P punch, 4K, etc: all the usual Ein tools do work well against her. My only issue with them is the whole getting way too predictable, I've been trying to find more mixups but coming up short. I also ran into bad timing several times where I put out a 4K when it was too slow to be effective.

BTW, JayceeChris sounds like we're in the same situation and I've love to check out the matchup videos you had of Christie, but the links appear dead. I see it was some time ago you uploaded them, I guess it's been too long.
 

JayceeChris

Member
Ein/Christie is stupidily hard for Ein because of Christie's pressure and evasiness. Really this match-up is a real pain.
First of all I recommend you to learn to interrupt every string where there's a high or a delay :
- 2PP : Counter the 2nd hit or use 1P/2P
- H+K,K : *
- PKK : *
- 4K2K : You can use a i13 move to interrupt it or counter it.
- JAK PK : Be careful because Christie has a mix-up with JAK PP which is a mid punch (-10 on block)

Against Chrisite you should always consider that your next action is going to be something useful, if not, just space her out/block and be patient.

If you are at a long range, try to push you opponent to commit a mistake by using footsies and punish it accordingly. I Know that whiff punishing Christie is a real pain sometimes so if you don't feel like whiff punishing a move (because the recovery is fast or you were too slow) just be patient for the next opportunity.

3K is a good keep out tool, just be careful on the long recovery it has (i26).
Christie's 6PP is a very good gap closer so you should consider counter the 2nd hit or even the 3rd one (6PPP)

If you are at close range you are in serious danger because Christie can outpoke Ein way to easily or even avoid a lot of Ein's move with the Jakeiho stance.
1P and H+K are imo both key moves in this match-up because of their tracking abilities.
Don't forget that Ein has great damage by countering. So be ready to get your instinct on and make hard reads.

Be careful about Christie's 214P. Lot's of players tend to use it after a safe move so if you feel like the player's gonna go for it just backdash and punish it. It's also -7 on block so if by any way it lands on you guard you can neutral grab it.

Hope it helps a bit.
 

Shodaku

New Member
Ein/Christie is stupidily hard for Ein because of Christie's pressure and evasiness. Really this match-up is a real pain.

...

Hope it helps a bit.

That's great, thank you! I will practice interrupting the Christie strings you describe in the lab until I get the timing down. This opponent likes his 214P, and I've definitely seen him trap me with it after a safe attack as you describe so I'll also practice backdash-and-punish timing for it in lab mode.
 

Force_of_Nature

Well-Known Member
Standard Donor
I'm having a difficult time with the Ein Vs Christie match-up. I've had a ton of such games against one player who beats me roughly 3 to 1, and I'd really appreciate some insight from other players on what else I should be trying against him. Against lesser Christies I can turtle my way to victory, but this particular opponent has a way of getting in close and staying there.

The first video is the closest game I saved a replay of--I clearly see where I made mistakes and probably could have won this one:

I do manage to beat him every now and then, here's one of the winning matches:

And in all fairness to him, there are also plenty of beatdowns sent my way as shown here:

I'm in experimental mode and testing out different ways to fight back against her, in those videos you'll see some of what both worked and failed spectacularly. A few quick notes:

OH: the offensive hold is quite useful against her, I'm still working on getting the timing just right but there's been plenty of times it's pulled her right out of an attacking string.

Low OH: I need to get better at landing this. I saw in Tenryuga's Christie video that he kept nailing her in jak using it, and so far I've only managed it once against this particular Christie. Might be worth practicing against her in training mode.

9P: there was a time I thought 9P was doing work against Christie as I had several matches where I was able to crush and launch her using it. As shown in these videos, though, it's way too inconsistent...I wasn't able to land it once here. I should probably stop trying to use it.

Holds: definitely important, they saved my bacon more than once against him. Since I recorded these I've started labbing Christie so I can learn her strings and get better at holding them.

6K strings, 3P punch, 4K, etc: all the usual Ein tools do work well against her. My only issue with them is the whole getting way too predictable, I've been trying to find more mixups but coming up short. I also ran into bad timing several times where I put out a 4K when it was too slow to be effective.

BTW, JayceeChris sounds like we're in the same situation and I've love to check out the matchup videos you had of Christie, but the links appear dead. I see it was some time ago you uploaded them, I guess it's been too long.

Your Ein is solid, no doubt. When fighting Christie, try to stay out of close range as much as possible. It never works out well for Ein unless you can make a good read on an interrupt point against Christie. 3P & 6K will be your pokes for interruption. 3K~delay~K will be your hit-confirmable launcher when at Range 2 (outside jab range) if you can CH something or even score a NH. 2P is also a great tool against any predicted highs (like you showed against something like Christie's H+KK). 3H is amazing against Christie and shuts down JAK in its tracks. 1P is also necessary to deter sidestep abuse.

What you want to do against Christie is make her respect your space by keeping her out as much as possible. 236P will be your keepout tool of choice when Christie misplaces a poke on the screen. 46P is good too, but Christie has a lot of good hi-crushing tools including a powerful roll than can crush horizontal mids. Don't abuse 236P though because JAK~P can blow it up for a CH launch. 3K is also good like JayceeChris said. If you can make it hard for Christie to get in on her opponent, you can frustrate her easily because she either needs to score a CH, whiff punish something with 214P or make someone fold to close range pressure in order to win. If Christie isn't in close range she's either gunna poke you with 6PP, 4K, H+K or 2H+K to try and get something started or to establish space control on an opponent. Christie thrives on her opponent panicking or freezing up when she's on offense. Being able to hold her strings on reaction is crucial in beating her or Kasumi.

If she tries to close in on you or pressure you with 6PP, be ready with a Mid-P hold. If you take away 6PP or 6PPP from Christie, you can make it a lot harder for her to score an easy CH stun to get her critical stun mix-up game started. H+K doesn't have a good follow-up and no JAK transition like 6PP. 6K doesn't have good follow-ups on block but does have a JAK transition. After 6K, consider 1P'ing (or 2P'ing if the opponent doesn't JAK). 4K only has a high & low follow-up, though the "low" can low-crush making it a little tricky with using 2P's to interrupt (though you can just use 3P or 6K like JayceeChris implied).

You're doing good, so I don't think you have to worry too much. Good luck!
 
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