Free Step Dodge

Gonna get familiar and decent with the whole cast, tired of losing matches cause I'm not aware of a characters' options

I'm going to do the opposite at first because I rather like the "Oh spit that was cool as FUUUUU! I didn't know he/she could do that!" moments motivating me to lab them and find out how to deal with it. More of an organic experience.

Honestly you should familiarize yourself with your character first. Learn the ins and outs, get the muscle memory, then work your way through the cast. Me personally I go by experience, so when I play someone who keeps catching me with something then I go into sparring and recreate what he did.

Learn 2\3 characters a week. Make several arcade runs changing your character each time.I've already started to learn as many as possible.No need to be pro with each, but being able to change on a fly is enough.It helps a lot.

I'm a lab monster, i could stay in training mode for hours,perfecting muscle memory, learning frames combos/strings mixups etc. No need to wait for 6,you should start already since i doubt they'll drastically change characters.