Vampire Savior/Lei-Lei/Matchups
Matchups
Zabel
Notes are from Hagure, slime, and Snuggleguns.
Accept that Zabel is going to be in the air a lot. Zabel is hard to deal with air to air for Lei. The MU depends on whether or not the Zabel player overdoes it on their upbacking and ends at the top of the screen to much. If their movement is good they can stay under your 6HP and MP item toss, but if they haven't good movement those are good checks. Other buttons to deal with upbacking are 5LP, 2MP, 6MP, 6HP and TRH. The mixing of Item Toss and Gongs can also help control space.
5HK is good at catching Zabel upbacking Lei's pressure. If he upbacks your oki, meaty your lows better.
A general strat to go against Zabel is to go for chicken guarding a lot since most (Zabels) IAD instead of air chain. Don't get air reset'd because you will eat a full unblockable combo.
Your neutral jump LP/MP is good because neutral jumping is non commital air poke space (Lei can airdash backward or forward, pend) -- jumping forward puts you in anti-air range and jumping backwards gives up screen position. The worst that can happen in a neutral jump (outside of anti-air rang) is that you air block. Upbacking with normal can be good depending on the situation, since Lei can move forward without having to land after upbacking.
If you're confident in your meaties, you can 2LK or 2MK into TRH or a sweep. Delayed lows are weak vs Zabel due to his frame 1 jumping hurtbox on his jump startup, so cover the jump frames on your oki if you're not doing a true meaty low.
Gallon
Notes are from Typhas, Nickmanjj and Snuggleguns.
Stay more mobile. 2HK checks nicely but it's commital. 2MP works but you need space to stop a close jump from Gallon. Meeting him in the air with jLK works if he's above you (around the peak of his jump). jMP/MK are better if you are up there before him. 5P can stop hop pressure and convert to an advantageous situation if not a combo, PB into 2MP>2HP will hit them when they whiff their next button a lot, and also chicken blocking into jLP works a lot. There's some hard reacts to counter the jump spam that you probably have to make. Trying to just react for counters can end in whiffing and getting thrown around. 6HP covers Gallon's upback and MP.Item Toss covers their jump angle but if they go for a low angle instead you will eat lots of damage.
Against a Gallon spamming Beast Cannon get to a place you can block safely and be prepared to punish or close the distance after they finish. BC is hard to deal with if you're far and trying to approach from the air, but it's harder for them to bully with it if you block and stay grounded. Lei also has good disjoints on 5MK, 2MP, and 2HK that can shut down the move, though you will need startup time to react.
Sasquatch
Notes are from Snuggleguns.
Sasquatch is a really bad matchup because of damage output/health difference, top tier buttons mixes, Lei's no reversals, and a bunch more advanced reasons. Sas can win a lot exchanges even when he guesses wrong defensively due to good buttons and his GC being annoying for Lei to get around, also he can more easily make use of push block into instant turn around offense. Some things to lean on would be like 6MP to check far hops, and pb/upback if they're close. 2HK is pretty important to prevent Sasquatch from jumping in freely if they are just 9-jumping at you.
There's a good tut on the LK->MP->TRH route, the trick there is actually just make sure your LK~HK is fast enough the HK never chains. Practice those two buttons in a vacuum to make sure you have that hidden HK input, and from there its just chain timing to MP. Sasquatch does not get hit far TRH OTG during neutral wakeup, basically only gets hit OTG when forward rolls or impractical point blank setup for the 1st ball to hit OTG.
Q-Bee
Notes are from Kajoq, Moebius, Snuggleguns.
Active defense is very important against her, fuzzy defense concepts are really important. Her low is some frames faster than her overhead and she gets way less off it, so you go low wiggle high. Bee's, and really high/low characters in general, ideal range is about the the length of a character or two away as she will be in range to force you to guess between high/low. Effective pushblocking in neutral is important as you want to keep her out of that range, Bee's pokes are effective but give little reward with her below average damage output. Once she does enter her ideal range unless she enters point blank range you want to focus on using fuzzy guard to prevent her high from starting a chain into knockdown and then try to respond to her low pressure with the appropiate response. 2MP is good for stopping repeated strings. If you tech hit, jump back button/pend on reaction.
Your IAD pressure should work vs a crouching Bee, use jHK if you're worried about her low-profiling you. On the ground don't poke with roundhouse, use 2MP to check Q-Bee's 5MP safely or 2HP to do it unsafely.
Random note, Lei's 2MK low profiles Bee's GC at max range so if you're playing a wake-up GC happy Bee, go for 2MK xx TRH to splat them.
Aulbath
Notes are from Nickmanjj (ComtponFalcon), Kajoq, Snuggleguns, Typhas.
In neutral it's all about getting in smart and keeping the pressure on, he doesn't have great defense or ways to keep you out up close. From fullscreen you'll be susceptible to his projectiles, AA HP, and various air to airs, so it's important to get to him in steps if you need to and get him to make a bad call that you can manuever around. Pendulum is good for flying in fast, and you can cancel into block to avoid getting hit by HP since it can't break air guard.
He's got better air normals than you if you're both jumping and hitting buttons, however your spaced jLKs and jMKs will win you a lot of trades. Max height jump > air dash will get over all of his projectiles and usually get you a punish if you're a little closer than full screen. It's important to do this on reaction though because if he has charge and sees you air dashing, he gets a free projectile on your air dash for going in. You can also chicken block these and convert them into air dash pressure after.
Bubble is fucked for Lei Lei, he's got auto timed setups that cover both neutral wakeup and roll the same without needing to reposition. Your only answer is to get a frame perfect DF to escape or to just not wind up there in the first place. Lei's DF will absorb the bubble, If they dont have a true meaty setup that's generally the best option. The other options are 8 jump -> airdash, 8 jump -> pendulum, but they can often react to those. However, it will usually draw enough time out of the bubble that you can mash out before they gas. 8 jump -> falling LP or falling LP xx Pendulum are also options.
Never give him the corner on accident, you can bully him really nicely and keep him locked in at tech roll distance, until he pops DF. Basically if you can keep up pressure you'll probably win, if you get spaced out and cornered you'll probably lose.
Bulleta
Notes are from Nickmanjj.
She's got the slowest neutral wakeup in the game but one of the fastest rolls (they're about tied for speed) so getting reads on how she wants to roll for oki is hard but necessary.
A lot of this MU is gonna be fought in the air or you antiairing her. Expect to have your air moves blocked in the air and getting hit with a counterattack jMP from her. You have to be tricky about which normals you use and how often, sometimes you can drag her to the ground successfully in a blockstring but it's not likely. jLK and jMK are gonna be your MVP normals if you want to try and counter poke her for going for an air button first, or if you wanna stay at a safe distance from her counter jMP after. You need decent spacing to do this though. Your other air moves will have some use but like it was said Bulleta will spend a lot of time airbone. 2HK has a great disjoint for straight up beating her air to ground moves as well as knocking down, 2MP is really good at a distance, 5LK, 5LP, 5MP, and sometimes 5MK can be good for punishing her as she's leaving the ground. 6HP is useful but not as much as you'd think, she won't be occupying that space a ton.
At a lot of heights you can use combinations of jLP, jLK, jMP, and jMK to lock in her jump height, get above her, be out of range of the follow-up jMP or most other air moves, and then fall on her with jHP or jHK. jMK is also a great air frame trap if you skip jMP to catch them mashing a button, and all 4 buttons (but especially jLK and jMK) suck in the bottom part of her hurtbox really nicely so she can't really counterattack when you're above her like that. She usually only gets a jMP if you 9 jump, you get less pressure/reward off of 8 jump or 7 jump into an air move but it's safer.
Her missiles are a problem but you have more ways around it than most. Pendulum movement lets you get over them or air block them and air dash towards or away depending on the situation. If she's already fired them it's also a pretty safe opportunity to air dash over them. However if she hasn't fired them yet and is in a position where she has charge the missiles will very consistently hit you out of air dash with no way to block, so be careful about approaching from far away.
Pushblocking is crucial to avoid her jHK unblockable setup and just getting her off of you in general. That and just your regular air dash. Pendulum can make you tricky and is actually hard for Bulleta to contest the hitbox in the air, she'll be stuck blocking it a lot and sometimes you can leverage that into a good string or good positioning. Pendulum cancels to fly across the map or cancelled into air dash are useful too and being able to cancel pendulum into block helps with dealing with Bulleta's air moves and missile.
If you have meter to spare ES Gong can help control space while reflecting missiles for a while, even if they don't hit she's forced to deal with them.
Bishamon
Notes are from Snuggleguns, slime and Hilary.
On offense: Tenraiha is not reliable. On block Bish gets full damage punish + loops. He is able to roll the OTG hits on most combos outside of the corner. Should confirm into heavy button x TRH anvil, optimize for damage without the OTG hitting. Use turning frames, ES gong. Bish wants to GC things so he can be vulnerable to command throw.
Bish is really tall even when crouching so you can instant overhead with 9LP and not worry about him ducking 5LP. Airdash over fireball if he does it too much.
On defense: His dash options are good so he can blow you up if you're sitting still too long, but he can't cover everything if you switch between high air approaches and staying grounded and pushing him to a corner. Ground block and aim to pushblock dash normals. 1 hit pb always a risk of fireball frame traps. ES fireball is +0, his dash normals are all plus. Mid screen air you will looe with pendulums or other risky options to his jump normals. If taking to the air you need to be at far range first and HP pendulum for height to be above his jump.
Avoiding the unblockable. Wake up DF is your only option. Watch opponent's meter for if they have an unblockable stock and aim your DF for when her hat returns to her head or when her feet touch the ground. Aim for the frame after the reversal frame. Even if you DF you'll still eat damage most likely, but that's preferable to being looped. Also PB block strings into ub set up like corner two hit chain to ES fireball he does.
It'll take a lot of discipline to jump less than you normally would, if you get antsy or predictable about when you jump, he'll AA, take a huge chunk of dmg, and then have oki/mixup on you.
Anakaris
Notes are from KyleW, Snuggle and slime.
Approach with Pendulum, the risk/Reward will be drastically in your favor.
You can snipe his limbs at neutral. Since he can't pushblock and your 5LP hits him crouching, you can bully just by walking and giving double jabs from a distance.
Any time you connect with Anakaris block you get a 50/50 with TRH, which deals tons of damage because unfortunately (for Anakaris) he gets juggled by the balls. MP toss is a good tool in the matchup as well.
Jab jab into IAD / low / command throw is pretty good against him.
Victor
Notes are from KyleW.
Keep away game against victor using senpuubu for vertical distance + the blades ex. https://twitter.com/vmp_kylew/status/891794298148012032?s=21 https://twitter.com/vmp_kylew/status/891793198602792960?s=21
