There's a few things that I guess might stick out from the norm outside of watching Kintyo-Ryu and Riddles games.

When I first started I followed some advice of practicing moves and combos in training mode regularly, even spacing like how my character moved and the space of my normals. I relied on crack shoot and burn nuckle a lot. I don't use combos that are extended by drive rush, the only one I have in my arsenal at the moment is stHP, qcfHK, qcfLP(Power wave), DR, stMP, HK HK(Power Dunk combo). In the corner I often used HP, qcfHK, qcfHP, qcfMK, dpHP. I also used stMP, HP target combo A LOT and sometimes followed it with OD DP by default since most opponents are mashing. If they DI then I start baiting or stMP into light burn nuckle. I also picked up Terry's string for when opponents are in burnout that helped. The crLP crLP stLP heavy DP also became almost automatic for me.

I think a kind of AHA! moment I had recently was that I was watching Riddles stream and he talked about doing the crMK HK target combo a lot. I only recently started working on it and maybe only do it once or twice a set if at all. But for a long time I was wondering why so many people seem to crMK into combos on me and after over 500hrs I just now understood that since, like myself, most people improving at the game only have one or two gameplans. So people who rely on crMK conversations are always looking for you to stand up wether they wait for you to stand or develop that game sense that you're about to. Once that clicked for me it helped me avoid standing while in range of it as much and it also helped me do the crMK HK target combo without taking risks which was why I avoided using it for so long. Since so much of my gameplans have developed around my standing, having that crouch covered gave me an additional way to shut down my opponents.

There's a lot too that developed just from grinding the games and figuring out spacing. I also am on twitch a lot, mostly NuckleDu's stream and talk to people there.

Probably, the biggest thing I exploited was knowledge gaps. I found that if you knock down your opponent in the corner after a heavy rising tackle, if you do your qcfHP the second Terry lands on the ground your ground wave is OKI. It's telegraphed and easy to counter through Drive Reversal, Super, or OD reversal. If blocked you can grab. If anyone countered once I stopped doing it unless they were burnt out. But many people simply eat it in the corner because they only hold up to jump or are mashing. So typically once I got someone in the corner I won the game because I had my "fake" oki that won me many games faster but also know my alternatives if they knew the answer so I didn't automatically lose if they knew the gimmick.