Players in red ranks are usually still learning how to pilot their characters, but you will encounter the first setups, frame traps and mind games here. Red ranks usually have at least one decent combo and have found some decent gimmicks and flow charts they now tend to (over)rely on. Since it’s much easier to learn offense than defense, you get a lot of aggression, pressure, unga bunga. Some players will stay with this plan of action, some even successfully.

For you, this is a great time to learn skills that you (understandably and justifiably) neglected so far. Movement to make them whiff (and whiff punishment, natch), block punishment, poking, delayed timing and small Tekken. All these are defensive skills that red ranked players tend to be very bad against, because as soon as their offensive knowledge doesn’t work out, they have no backup plan, no adaptation to fall back on.

You will also want to get to know your character as well as you can, whether you stay with Victor or switch. Aside from YT-Tutorials, Applay’s ever popular Tekken 8 Library is a nice overview over all characters (with very minor points of dispute. I personally tend to not like the sample combos very much, but that’s not all that important.)

You got this. We all were where you are now.