BBCF/Izayoi/Strategy

Izayoi

Overview

Starter Guide

Combos

Neutral

Normal Mode Neutral

Gain Art Neutral

Offense

Block Pressure

Normal Mode Pressure

Normal Mode Goals

Goals in Pressure

Izayoi in Normal Mode wants to either throw her opponent up close or push them out of close range to make them block a special move. Her pressure is somewhat unremarkable outside 2A. Generally strings that end in 5C > 2C > 236A will push opponents back to midscreen and leave Izayoi at a slight advantage, but the gap between her C normals and 236A is contestable. To avoid this, cancel into 236B or 236C to swat them out of their jump. If those are blocked she can either sit there and let it rock or cancel into 214C to build space.

Normal Mode Frame Traps

Frame Traps

2A > 2C is a 1-frame gap on normal block and generally incontestable on Instant Block. 2C is a Fatal Counter starter and generally gives her a bunch of resources to work with in the following combo (even if the damage is lacking). 6A can be used instead, as it is a worse starter but retains a lot of gatling options while still having the same utility as a frame trap.

5C/2C > 6C is a 3-frame gap on normal block and will trade with 6f normals (heavily in Izayoi's favor) on Instant Block. 6C is also a Fatal Counter starter and has similar reward to 2C, albeit with worse damage.

5B and 2B have generous cancel windows which allows delay cancels into each other or her C normals to act as frame traps as well.

Normal Mode Pressure Resets

Pressure Resets

2A is naturally plus and a 6f gap into itself if allowed to recover instead of gatling-ing. Against characters with 7f or slower 2As, it's very difficult to contest. The only real roadblock are 6f 5As that hit crouching opponents as it'll force a trade. It's possible that opponents may Instant Block 2A, but not very likely. If they do this then gatling into something else and begin praying.

6C > 236[B]~A, or stance cancelled 6C is +1 on normal block. This is somewhat predictable towards the end of her strings, but 6C is already useful as a frame trap. Not something to reset pressure off of every time but excellent to keep in the back pocket. If 6C is Instant Blocked, Izayoi is forced into some minor RPS. Releasing 236B after a slight delay will catch mashing but be significantly negative on block. If she cancels the stance like normal she'll be -2. Not the end of the world, but her turn is over and she's quite close to her opponent.

Normal Mode Mixups

Mixup Tools

Mixup Tools

Throw is her main tool to open people up when she's in Normal Mode. While she does have an overhead with , it's very telegraphed and not very rewarding to land. It'll maybe hit once per set.

Gain Art Pressure

Gain Art Goals

Izayoi's pressure changes from very middle-of-the-road in Normal Mode to "best in the game" in Gain Art. Her hoverdash gives her incredibly fast mixups and pressure resets, but the Izayoi player must take care in not going too crazy. Restraint is the key, as repeatedly hoverdashing is very interruptible. Instead of relying on one option, use Izayoi's wealth of frame traps and threats to overwhelm the opponent's mental stack before picking them apart.

Gain Art Frame Traps

Frame Traps

5CGuardMidStartup9Recovery15Advantage-1 > 2CGuardMidStartup18Recovery11Advantage5 is an incredible conditioning tool. There's only a 2-frame gap on normal block and a 5-frame gap on Instant Block, and surprise surprise, GA 2C is a Fatal Counter starter. If the opponent gets hit by Fatal 2C they pretty much die.

> is only really necissary if the second hit of 2C is Instant Blocked, but again, 6C is a Fatal Counter starter. They will respect 2C or they will die.

Gain Art Pressure Resets

Pressure Resets

2C is +5 on block and +2 on Instant Block, all while vacuuming opponents back into her pressure. Keen opponents will always IB the second hit as it's telegraphed by the first, but this can be worked around by gatling-ing either hit into 6C to vary the timing or punish a jump/mash attempt. She can also take the +2 and reset into 2A, although this loses to mashing. If you're feeling particularly brave and/or stupid, 66 AT will grab people jumping out while also faking out 66j.A. If the opponent doesn't Instant Block, 5C > 2C will loop into each other almost indefinitely.

6C, not to be left out, is also +1 on block. It cannot be cancelled into anything on block though, so if they IB this they're out. However, it's hard to be mad at an advancing, plus on block, Fatal Counter launcher.

5C will usually be respected out of fear of 2C, which means Izayoi can leverage its jump cancel for a quick IAD pressure reset. Only j.A or j.B will connect here, as j.C is too slow and will hit the ground before it comes out.

Gain Art Mixups

Using Hoverdash

The core of Izayoi's mixups. 66j.AA is a 16 frame overhead that combos into 5C on crouching opponents, and 66j.C is an incredibly plus pressure reset. She can mix these with her already quite good lows (2AGuardLowStartup7Recovery8Advantage1, 2BGuardLowStartup9Recovery18Advantage-6) or slightly delay her lows to make the mixup ambiguous. 3CGuardLowStartup16Recovery21Advantage-10 is designed to be a 50/50 with 66j.A as they're both 16 frames. 3C is the higher reward option of the two, but also cannot be cancelled (aside from RC) on block and is -10 up close. By comparison, j.AA is slightly plus, typically around +7 on normal block.

Izayoi can also fake going high with her hoverdash by using Airthrow instead of a jump normal. This has the bonus effect of catching jump outs and making you look like a god. It's highly useful once the threat of her overheads has been established and the opponent is scared to mash, as its her easiest way to get back into ground throw range or even connect a fast low. Be careful though, as it is much slower than going for an overhead out of hoverdash and will lose hard to mashing.

Forcing respect of her plus on block normals will cover her dash, but she can also try to reset off something minus if the opponent thinks she will continue the string instead. Most importantly, , , or even all have 16 frames of blockstun, turning each one into a potential mixup with 50 meter on hand.

Okizeme

Normal Mode Okizeme

2A Hitstop OS

After any 623C knockdown, run up 2A into buffered 5C will catch any wake up that isn't immediate. If the 2A hits, the 5C will automatically come out and you can cancel into another 623C for a free 2 stocks. If the 2A whiffs, she will recover with slight frame advantage.

IAD Safejump

IAD j.C Safejump

After a 623C knockdown, IAD j.C. Very easy and stable setup. Depending on the timing, it can also catch forward rolls.

Gain Art Okizeme

66j.C Safejump

After Strike Fall, immediately do a 66j.C as low to the ground as possible. This will catch anyone not getting up immediately and other inputs can be buffered early during the j.C to automatically confirm a pickup if it hits and do nothing if it whiffs. Safe against all reversals. This is the default oki setup that most Izayoi players will go to. The only real downside to this is the total lack of safe mixup on wakeup as even a simple 66 j.A loses to 5A mashing.

Meaty 236D

After any Strike Fall ender, do 236D immediately. This is safe vs any ~5f or slower reversal, tends to be safe against 4f or faster reversals anyway due to spacing, and will catch almost all wake ups except for midscreen back roll or very delayed techs (which can easily be caught by 66 j.C or other normals). Since the corner removes the back roll option, it's ideally used there. Do note that there are character specific counters like Hakumen's Yukikaze. While a solid setup into a number of mixups (dash high/low, teleport left/right, etc.), it is fairly expensive to use 1 extra stock at the end of every combo and the aforementioned counters are still a threat.

5C Hitstop OS

After any Strike Fall ender, do 5C immediately while buffering a 623C (or any other special/super). If the opponent does anything that isn't an immediate wake up, the 5C will hit and the buffered special will come out. If the opponent gets up immediately, the 5C will whiff and still leave you at advantage. The downside to this setup is the limited mixup potential and (potentially) limited damage (ie. 66j.C after is loses to mashing but 66j.A is safe against even 5f A normals).

Trans Am

Trans-Am

After basically any sort of knockdown, pop Trans-Am to observe what they're doing during the super flash. If they are trying anything except for a normal tech, she get to confirm a free punish during the super flash. If they wake up normally, there are a couple of tricks that are possible. A common one is to 3C under them and get a free cross under while the bits cover Izayoi's recovery. Feigning her overhead (6[B]) will cause the bits to hit the opponent and let her go for an empty low or some other kind of mixup.

Examples of using Trans-Am on Oki

Defense

Ground-to-Ground Defense

Meterless Grounded Defense

50 Meter Grounded Defense

High Resource Grounded Defense

Ground-to-Air Defense

Normals that can Anti-Air

Izayoi has only one dedicated Head invulnerable anti-air which also happens to be difficult to use on reaction. Instead of having one catch-all solution, she relies on multiple spacing-dependent options.

5AGuardAllStartup6Recovery9Advantage0

Very last-minute anti-air, tends to get crushed by most heavier jump-ins. Combo options from CH AA 5A are also quite limited, but can lead to a knockdown if confirmed into 623C.

2BGuardLowStartup9Recovery18Advantage-6

2B's somewhat low-profile comes in clutch once again. Pretend you're playing Street Fighter and clip people's landing with this.

5CGuardMidStartup9Recovery15Advantage-1

Very positioning-dependent but especially rewarding after a crossunder.

Invulnerable Special Moves

623BGuardMidStartup9~90Recovery32Advantage-18

Behold: the only move that actually has Head invulnerability. Sadly it's tied to a DP motion which makes squeaking this out under pressure quite difficult. Its range is very strong but also very specific. It will fail you even if you can get it out sometimes.

623CGuardMidStartup15~104Recovery46Advantage-32

High risk (should it whiff), low reward anti-air. Also tied to a DP motion and quite slow. On the bright side, it swats people above Izayoi like nobody's business.

Rising Anti-Airs

and make for decent air approach interceptions but are highly dependent on what the opponent is doing and what angle they're approaching at. j.A is a pretty catch-all air-to-air but lacks the reward of her Airthrow.

Air-to-Air Options

Air-to-Airs

j.AGuardHigh/AirStartup6Recovery9Advantage-

j.BGuardHigh/AirStartup10Recovery15Advantage-

AirthrowGuardThrow(120)Startup7Recovery23+3LAdvantage-

j.623BGuardAllStartup11RecoveryUntil LAdvantage-

Don't whiff this. Her only real way of poking at people above her in the air.

Tips and Tricks

Note that all the following tricks are specific to Gain Art mode.

236A > 214D from fullscreen can often catch people who are passively responding to fireball zoning. It converts into a full combo on hit and leads to pressure on block.
66 j.C > jump cancel > airdash > j.C will cross up to the nature of her airdash. This works as a fast crossup to crack open a particularly stubborn defense.
Whiffing air grab after a hoverdash lets Izayoi fall faster than normal and opens up empty low/throw as mixup options.
44 j.236B > j.214D is a stock intensive but strong wakeup option. The backdash tends to have enough invuln to escape meaties (obviously not viable against Jin's snowflake or other oppressive setups) and j.236B can convert into ~3.5-4k depending on stock usage. This can also be used as a means of baiting and punishing DP's when the opponent has meter to rapid cancel.
Izayoi's taunt has an active hitbox and starts up in around 16 frames. This can be comboed after with rapid cancel or followed up meterless if Trans Am is active. The best follow up normal after rapid cancel is usually 6A due to it forcing crouch. Obviously this should only be used for stylish punishes due to it being a poor starter and having awful startup.

Fighting Izayoi

Izayoi's gameplan can be simplified into a few main steps:

Fill her Zero Weave gauge (AKA get stocks)
Get in on you (which isn't that hard if she's using her fireballs, teleports, and multiple air options)
Mix you to death with her hoverdash
Fall back to step 1 if she runs out of stocks (or just pop Overdrive)

Normal Mode

Knowing this, you should absolutely exploit her weaknesses during Step 1 and keep her there. You should be doing everything in your effort to avoid getting touched by her fireball and slashes as they still build 1 stock on block. While she covers big sections of the screen with her specials, they are somewhat slow to recover so you can whiff punish them with careful movement or just blow through with certain specials. Air approaches are somewhat of a good option since her only real grounded anti-air is her 623B which has a tendency to whiff if spaced carefully. None of her teleports are safe so feel free to mash if they're doing sneaky B teleports in the corner.

Gain Art Mode

Now she has stocks and is starting to look a bit scary. You probably messed up somewhere or she decided to burn OD on round start. Regardless, you need to avoid letting her get in on you. Be aware that she has 3 air options in this mode so things like two jumps > airdash or airdash > jump are a possibility. Her ground dashes can be punished since she cannot block until she stops. If she ever teleports in the air, that means that it was a D teleport and she will appear behind you. Remember that it is unsafe if you aren't already blocking a fireball so mash/jump if she does it raw. Avoiding fireballs in general is more important now since blocking one means she gets a free teleport in on you.

If she does get in on you, you will need to start guessing as her high/low game is unreactable up close. Her pressure is stubbier in GA mode due to 5C's reduced range and 6C's lack of cancel options so barrier can throw a wrench in her pressure. Unless your opponent shows that they are willing to end pressure/burn stocks when pushed out far enough, expect them to hover dash to reset pressure once they can't hit you with 2C. Dash ins can be cleanly beaten out by preemptive anti airs, reversals, or even mashing.