lolTo be fair, you're the only real Hayabusa I've fought, Brute.
Well, as we know, Hayabusa has trouble opening people up due to his speed, lows and mix-ups. Thus, his neutral game is largely defensive and usually involves controlling space. His long-range tools aren't incredibly tricky, but they do alter footwork on the opponents' side, and abusing these is often how Hayabusa tries to regain a degree of control in the neutral game. Momiji gives him a lot of problems here. She can cover a lot of distance very quickly, often snubbing Hayabusa's usual tools with crushes and the like. Some of her moves have deceptively long reach and excel at keep-out (such as 2H+K, 9K, certain mid Ks, etc.). This gives her comparable whiff punishment, something Hayabusa doesn't regularly deal with. Hayabusa's range options are also prone to side-steps because they are single-strike non-tracking advances. Momiji can cover great distance with multiple strikes and tracking.That said, can you add anything yourself?
Up close, Hayabusa still has the disadvantage despite comparable hit level speeds, given that Momiji is safer and has better mix-ups. They have similar moves in some regards, but Momiji's are just better at opening someone up. Take 2H+K for example. It may no longer crush mids, but that doesn't make it equivalent to Hayabusa's version. Hers has a much longer and safer reach, and her 1P2K to 1PP mix-up's advantages should be obvious, even without considering the range of her 1P compared to Ryu's. Comparing their guard breaks... well... yeah. We all know about Hayabusa's GBs in 5U...
Momiji has good stuns, like Ryu, and can play the stun game if she chooses, or go for stun-launch situations. Her Shoho is less damaging than Ryu's, but is still a good chunk of damage for a juggle at any threshold level. She can chain sit-down stuns and has some great rapid-fire stun tools. Hayabusa's stun tools are slower, and arguably more telegraphed. That said, they are still amazing. His stun game I don't consider "lacking" to Momiji's at all, especially considering his bait reward. But, they play very differently, each with their own trade-offs there. Momiji with mix-ups, stun, and speed pressure, Hayabusa with damage, huge stuns and guarantees.
Oki is hard to gauge because being perfectly honest, I've yet to see a Momiji player utilize her oki options to their full potential. So I'll leave it at this: both have good oki options, but not excellent.
So what does Hayabusa bring to the table in this match-up? Like you said: damage. He out-classes her in damage on almost every front. This is especially the case when it comes to holds and throw damage. However, Momiji can be tricky for him to pin down with these. Her safety and delays can be very difficult to throw punish (as can keeping her still long enough to tick-throw given her crushes and mobility). Additionally, she is not bound by predictable hit-level patterns, particularly regarding punches. You don't necessarily see the same openings with punches to get his trademark izuna counters. Frequently launches with high kicks, blows you up with mid kicks and trips you with low kicks. Hayabusa does have an expert mid K hold, but it's not all that scary as opposed to his normal scare factor: the izuna holds. Even some of her attacks like 1PP can be extremely hard to izuna because they sweep so much range, you can whiff an expert low hold trying to grab the 1P which whiffs a foot off, and then get snagged by the 1PP instead.
Hayabusa also get his gimmicks. Momiji also gets gimmicks, but they function differently than Ryu's. But again, they're a hard factor here. Much like the expert holds, timing his ongyoin parry against Momiji is particularly tricky since she comes at you at so many different levels at different ranges with different speeds and different follow-ups. Her frequently crushing airborne/crouching state makes some typical options very risky and unwise, such as ongyoin 8T or 6P+K.
So basically Hayabusa gets snubbed by Momiji at long-range, snubbed at short range, less mix-ups, less safety, reduced gimmick efficiency, some trade-offs in the stun department and comparable oki, and in return he gets better damage output.
When factoring how that would look in a MU, consider the power vs speed/mixup/rushdown/neutral dominating balance in the game at large. Bass and Leon have huge damage output, but rarely are they considered to have favorable match-ups to, say, Pai, who has low damage output but dominates the neutral game. Same applies to Helena, Chrisite or Sarah (though Sarah's damage... yeah, won't go into that). Ultimately, dominating the neutral game, having good mix-ups, having safety, etc. is what makes you excel in this game. In this instance, Momiji takes that over Hayabusa.
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