From: skillian@ux4.cso.uiuc.edu (Seth James Killian)
Subject: Re: Being a Master? (PLUS UNFINISHED SAGAT GUIDE!!)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 07:55:28 GMT




		In his "Unfinished Sagat Guide", T. Cannon covers a lot of 
	basic ground.  I myself am capable of little more than competent pattern
	style Sagat play, but am also learning.  No great additions here (I did
	notice a few little things, but I didn't want to include the original
	post and now I forgot 'em :(...).  Want I want to add here is some 
	tips on fighting Blanka with Sagat.  I have seen many fairly good Sagat
	players trashed by what I consider to be bad Blanka's for what I can
	try to summarize with this: defensive play.  By in large, this is not
	an effective style vs. Blanka.  So where does this leave us?  Offensive
	play? VS Blanka?  Yup.  In defensive mode, Sagat is basically neutra-
	lized.  Unless he is on the complete opposite side of the screen he 
	cant safely throw a low FB, and he can almost never use the high FB.
	His kicks are too slow on the ground and Blanka has longer range to
	boot.  Sagat also lacks a constant defense vs. the ball, (cant jab
	Blanka out of it consistently) and thus suffers another strike against
	him.  Sagat also has difficulty countering an attacking Blanka.  On 
	the ground, head to head, Blanka has the advantage in almost every way.
	From the air, Sagat's normally useful standing roundhouse is also no 
	good.  All Sagat can do is to hope that Blanka screws up (as a lot of
	Blanka's are prone to doing) and jumps in from too close...Tigerrr
	Uppercut!  Outside of this, not too much can be done.  Ooops.  I almost
	forgot to mention one of Sagat's only other winning defensive techniques	He can FB "trap" Blanka just like Ryu can.  By throwing FB's and waiting	for Blanka to jump over them, Sagat can roundhouse sweep Blanka before
	he hits the ground while still out of range of all of B's attacks.  A
	little tricky to get the spacing down for this, but it's an immensely
	useful technique against dumb Blanka's or ones who haven't seen it 
	before (or maybe just weren't expecting it).  Sagat on the offensive
	does not seem to be at any great advantage, it just levels the playing
	field a bit and allows Sagat to have some control over the pace and
	direction.  Blanka's defense is still pretty good against Sagat but
	it is much worse than his offensive capabilities, and many otherwise
	good Blanka's will not know all the counters to Sagat attack styles
	because they are simply not used to being attacked by Blanka.  What 
	this does is to provoke mistakes.  Sagat usually appears as a sort of
	"leisurely" warrior, with semi-slow attacks and a generally "lazy"
	feel about him.  This is what is expected and common.  You can really
	scare people if you are at relatively close range and start going 
	"crazy" with Sagat's standing jab and forward kicks.  They are much
	faster than most of his other attacks and are conecting twice with
	each press.  Scary attack, works really great in the corner.  If you
	can manage to get in a throw during this "Sagat spasm" it can really
	strike fear into your opponents heart.  "Was I just ticked by Sagat?
	What the hell is going on here!  I've never seen this before.".  When
	pressing this attack in the corner Sagat has a truly *evil* attack vs
	Blanka.  By just jumping in with an aerial roundhouse, it will look
	like Sagat is jumping in just like normal, but on Blanka, the kick
	will have the same effect as a "neck kick" so it will hit him if 
	he was blocking forward.  It really looks for all the world like
	Sagat is jumping in from the front, but it will connect from behind.
	It's combo time.  I suggest one involving a TU, to add to the psych-
	ological effect of being combo'd from a blocking position.  Incidentally 	there is no point to using one of T. Cannon's combo's involving a FB.
	Anytime you can connect with a FB in Sagat combos, you could have used
	a TU, so go for the hurt.  Well, when it comes right down to it, Sagat
	is just outmatched by Blanka, and these techniques will eventually 
	become unsurprising and easily counterable, but I still maintain that
	there is a more equal balance of capabilities if Sagat can stay on the
	offensive.  I don't recall losing to any Sagat recently with Blanka,
	but I remember the first few times Ming pulled some of these little
	tricks on me it just blew my mind.  I was happy to put in another 
	quarter just so I could learn his little bag of tricks and prepare.
	This was just one more instance of where a technically perfect Sagat
	style would still get trashed, but an unorthodox and "crazy" style
	that was willing to take some necessary risks could pull off an
	impressive upset.

		Seth Killian

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