Tough Love Arena/Pork/Strategy

Pork

Overview

Combos

Strategy / Counterstrategy

Matchups

Full Frame Data

Disclaimer: This is a community written page and may contain opinions that not all players may agree with. Use at your own discretion.

Goals

Pork wants to get in and get their strike-throw offense started. Their most convenient way of doing so is by getting a knockdown to have a meaty Caber opportunity. Pork can also play a solid footsies game with their large Heavy Punch. Their main weakness is their lack of reliable approach options, but they make up for it with their strong offense and solid neutral.

Neutral

Pork can generally be a midrange character in neutral due to their strong tools for poking/zoning their opponent out and their need to approach characters that outrange them. Having good footsies and zoning will make Pork a nightmare to deal with in neutral.

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  Heavy Punch

• Heavy Punch is a strong neutral tool due to its fast speed and range.
• Heavy Punch can also be hit confirmed into a full combo a solid amount of the time.
• Palm complements Heavy Punch as a poke due to the additional pushback and the ability to have a safe ranged frame trap.

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  Chop

• Chop is a useful counterpoking tool that can armor the opponent’s attacks and has more range than Heavy Punch.
• Chop has a large amount of endlag and can be punished if Pork is too close so spacing the move well will be key to using it.

Shimmy

• Having a bar of meter on deck lets get more damage off of their hits, get more corner carry in their combos and gives them access to Chop > RC as a hard punish to poking in neutral.
• Shimmying is a useful counterpart to poking when the opponent is afraid of inching forward or if they are afraid to poke at Pork themselves.

Anti Airs/Jump Punishes

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• Spike is Pork’s fastest and most reliable anti air to use but give's Pork the worst reward out of their array of anti airs.

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• Heavy Punch is significantly harder than Spike to anti air on reaction, but nets Pork more damage and oki on hit and can "accidentally" anti air at times. Heavy Punch can also be used as a whiff punish tools versus Jump to net more damage.

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• Chop is Pork's hardest anti air and is their most rewarding anti air. Only use as a callout to a Jump Attack or if you are very confident in your ability to anti air.

Offense

Block Pressure

5L Starter:

• 5L > 5L is a basic frametrap that can loop into itself as long as Pork is close enough to the opponent.

• 5L > 5H leaves a big gap in between Gutpunch and Heavy Punch but can punish fuzzy mashing and Parries.

• 5L > 5T punishes the opponent being too afraid to mash versus Pork but doesn't have good oki unless they are thrown into the corner.

• 5LS is a reactable cancel into Caber Toss but has far better reward if it catches the opponent standing still.

• 5L walk allows Pork to get an unreactable Caber Toss or a closer 5L to reset pressure but Pork will lose their turn against an opponent preemptively mashing.

• 5LS4 threatens to Caber Toss without commiting to it. Leaves Pork 0 on block if canceled as quickly as possible.

5H Starter:

• 5HH when delayed acts like a frametrap that can lead to solid damage meterless if the opponent is mashing. Only use when you have meter to make Uppercut safe or if you have ahard read on the opponent

• 5HL functions similar to 5HH as a frame trap tool but trades off damage for safety.

• 5HLS: adds another frame trap to Pork's arsenal but can get punished if spaced too close to the opponent.

• 5H > 5H is useful when the opponent is too afraid to challenge after 5H.

• 5HS is a reactable cancel into Caber Toss for when your opponent least expects it.

• 5HS4 fakes the previous cancel and can be used to threaten your opponent without commiting to Caber Toss. Leaves Pork at -6 on block if canceled as quickly as possible.

Okizeme

Meaties

• 6S is by far Pork's safest meaty option if they are able to make it a safejump.

• 5L is Pork's weakest but most consistent meaty due to it's fast speed, raw frame advantage, large active frames, and scaling.

• 5H gives Pork the most amount of reward on hit at the cost of frame advantage on block.

• 5S is Pork's command grab and one of Pork's strongest meaties due to how easily it loops knockdown and how it forces an immediate 50-50 that has solid reward for Pork. If it is not done close to the opponent, it becomes far more reactable.

• 5T acts identical to 5S when meatied except that it's faster and it's a side switch throw. It has more range so it can be meaty after more knockdowns, but it has worse oki and can't loop strike/throw mixups unless it throws the opponent into the corner.

• 5H > RC give Pork a large amount of reward if it hits and lets Pork threaten meaty Caber again afterwards.

Sample Meaty Setups

• 5HSS > fast meaty button: A midscreen combo that lets Pork 50-50 with meaty Caber and a meaty attack.

• 5HH > 5H > 5H > 6S > Wait > fast meaty button: A corner setup that lets Pork 50-50 the opponent.

• 5HH > RC > Walk > 5HH: A setup that gives Pork a deep safejump or the ability to walk up and perform another meaty.

Defense

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  Chop

• Chop is a high risk, high reward armored reversal that is best used with caution. Keep in mind that it will lose to frame traps that have less than a 5 frame gap.

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  Gutpunch

• Gutpunch is useful for stuffing out an opponent’s overextensions during their block pressure, if you suspect the opponent will try to grab, or if you want to steal your turn back. Be sure to condition the opponent to not expect mashing first.

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  Reject

• Reject lets Pork stop the opponent’s block pressure at the cost of one bar of meter. Vary Reject timings to make sure the opponent is not ready for the neutral reset and can't bait out your Reject.

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  Burst

• Use Burst when you expect the opponent’s combo will kill or if you have a big enough life lead to gain back that meter in no time if you get hit again, otherwise save your meter for Rapid and Reject. Vary your Burst timings to make sure you don’t get hard punished for getting Burst baited.

• Blocking will cause your opponent to eventually push themselves too far away to continue their block pressure. Blocking is useful to bait out overextensions versus opponents who want to keep up the pressure, and with enough conditioning, you can start to mash at certain points during their block pressure.

Counter Strategy

• Zone them out.
• Pork can't smoke you with their powerful strike-throw mixups if they can't get in.
• Pork can struggle versus characters that outrange them since they don't have easy ways to approach safely.

• Abuse frames traps versus Pork.
• Pork is the only game without a frame one reversal.
• Frame traps are very useful to use when you want to pressure Pork.

Resources

The Lean Cut

Pork Tech Video

Pork Video Guide

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