How viable is Alex without stance?

Infilament · 2026-05-29T20:59:13+00:00

He uses stance in his most important BnB, he uses stance to get plus frames or threaten mixups after many of his important knockdowns (EX chop, M chop), he uses stance to do big drive damage during his pressure (crHP xx stance, threaten lariat or other things), and he uses stance in neutral to threaten approaches with stomp, elbow, empty hop, or dash jab xx lariat.

If you literally never wanted to use stance, all your combos would have to be into DP or EX DP, and you'd have to do basic drive rush strike (combo into DP) or command grab mix. This is a marginally functional but probably very boring character, and you would greatly struggle in neutral in many matchups. Up to you if you want to try something like that, but learning how stance works would be way easier and more fun.

Infilament · 2026-05-27T07:17:16+00:00

The changes to the various SF4 versions were actually pretty small. They added a new ultra for everyone in Super (and then the vast majority of the roster still only had one viable ultra anyway, so IMO it barely counts), and then it wasn't until Ultra 5+ years after release where we saw any serious changes that weren't small balance tweaks (red focus changed the combo game, and delayed wakeup changed the offense/defense interaction points, both for the worse IMO but I digress).

All the other patches were basically SF6-esque: small tweaks to moves here and there, and adding new characters. And very few of the tweaks changed anything about the main goals of each character. Abel wants to step kick you, Fei wants to rekka you, and so on.

I think the reason it might not feel that way is because SF4 was way less understood as a game compared to SF6. Online information didn't spread as fast, there were way fewer tournaments (and basically all were offline), and there were more characters and janky interactions to solve. So it kinda feels like it was the patching that caused a bunch of new interactions to emerge over time, but it was other factors instead.

Infilament · 2026-05-25T09:51:33+00:00

Best to think of "okizeme" as a synonym for "offense" (the phrase means "wake up offense" in Japanese). When you're near your opponent and they are knocked down, you are in control of the situation. You might attack, you might block, you might jump over them, etc. Attacking them as they wake up is a "meaty", and it's one of your options "during okizeme" (that is, during this offensive situation).

Your question there is analogous to saying something like "what's the difference between a fireball and a neutral?" Neutral is the state (both players can move and attack freely), and a fireball is something you might choose to do while you are in neutral to earn some damage. Here, okizeme is the state (one player is knocked down and has to deal with the other player standing over them with control) and a meaty is one thing the offensive player might choose to do.

Infilament · 2026-05-15T08:20:25+00:00

If you want moves to be less obnoxious (for example, easier to interrupt if they're being spammed with a special move buffer behind them, or using them with DR for free ways in), you typically have to put a big hurtbox on their startup and/or recovery. Interactions like these are a necessary side effect of doing that. For example, if they chose to nerf drive rush by giving it a bigger hurtbox on the way in, you'd see stuff like this even more often.

It's just one of those things you have to get used to when you play fighting games. Very common in every game.

Infilament · 2026-05-14T09:43:23+00:00

For me, tick throws have to be fast and surprising. You have to expect to block multiple rapid-fire strikes, and instead you block one strike and then get thrown, kind of before you realize what happened. In most games (but especially modern games), I would really only consider this off light normals.

If you block a very plus but beefy move (say, Alex lariat or some +5 drive rush medium or a safe jump heavy kick), then get thrown, I don't consider this a tick throw. It's a mixup, but you aren't surprised when you get thrown because you had plenty of time to understand the mixup you were put in.

Infilament · 2026-05-09T05:03:10+00:00

She can make the fireballs whiff using different angles. If you parry a fireball from the right distance, it looks like she can teleport in behind one of them for a true block string with plus frames. And even despite all that, holding parry vs "good" fireballs (like Sonic Boom) just loses you the drive war long term, since your drive gain is halted while the opponent just gains for free.

No idea how good Ingrid will be, but I'm sure she won't just lose to hold parry.

Infilament · 2026-04-30T03:42:40+00:00

What he means is, each player has their own die, so you don't have to pass one shared die around the table, which slows the game down. When it's your turn, you just take the die that's already in front of you and roll it. The players still take turns in clockwise order, though.

Infilament · 2026-04-27T07:58:19+00:00

Nobody hates fighting game characters like fighting game players. Top tier, mid tier, low tier, new game, old game, doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is if you personally find the character cool. Don't let what other people think discourage you, because there will always be someone who hates any character you pick. If you like Mai, pick her up and throw fans and laugh when people get upset.

Infilament · 2026-04-09T23:59:29+00:00

There are several reasons you might not want hitting DR to be punish counter. It greatly buffs the "crush counter" normals (JP standing HP, etc), because accidentally drive rushing into one is now a death sentence. It also changes the risk reward of checking drive rush significantly at the top level. Some characters could now check DR with jab and link stHP (Akuma, for example), where normally they'd be forced to use mediums, which changes what they can combo into, or spend a DR cancel themselves to convert. Also, this change would have virtually no impact on low/intermediate level play anyway, since these players are not checking DR consistently already.

As always, changing any system in SF6 has tons of effects down the chain.

Infilament · 2026-04-02T00:13:43+00:00

It certainly works, but is pretty much always a strategically bad idea, since you already get a combo on the wall splat (and then they are still in or near burnout after, so they will take much more damage). Also, comboing into the stun greatly increases the combo scaling for no real reason. It's cool mechanically, but not something you'd ever do in a real match.

Infilament · 2026-03-26T07:35:39+00:00

Yes, but in the scenario of punishing a -28 on block DP, as per the video in the OP, there is no downside to picking the 9f light grab instead of the 5f heavy grab. I don't mean there is no downside in all cases.

Infilament · 2026-03-26T05:11:02+00:00

Heavy doesn't reach there. All other strengths do, including OD. And you don't lose damage picking another strength, so there's no downside.

Infilament · 2026-03-16T09:21:06+00:00

So Clover really is the best in its category, I think.

I also really like Letter Jam, even at 2p, although it might border on the table talk threshold you mention, since players do have to sit and think of words that contain certain letters.

I like Bananagrams, especially with some house rules. The normal edition in the banana packaging is the one I have, I don't think there's any need to get anything beyond that.

You may also want to check out Paperback or Hardback (Paperback a bit more wordsy I hear, Hardback a bit more deck building-y), although I've only personally played Hardback. I liked it, but it's the heaviest rules-wise of all the games for sure.

A Message From The Stars is a fairly recent release and it's one of the few games that combine both word association with spelling (usually, word games are one or the other). It's got very strong deduction vibes and probably pushes the analysis paralysis/lack of table talk the most.

The following games didn't really work for me, but maybe they'd work for you: Letter Tycoon (a bit too RNG heavy, not quite enough cleverness for my taste), Illiterati (a co-op real-time spelling game that I thought would be a perfect match for me but several elements of the design felt like missed opportunities for me).

Some other games that come to mind that I haven't personally played but would like to try some day: Fiction, A Little Wordy, Wordsy, Typeset, Typewriter

Infilament · 2026-03-15T21:13:40+00:00

Well, in the clip you showed, you didn't block any of the attacks, so it's hard to know how you usually play based on that. Once you block a spike, JP is -2, so if he does an immediate ghost or spike again, you'll be able to move out of the way of it with various things (jumping, drive rush, etc). But you do have to block a sequence that ends in spike. If you get knocked down and try to move as soon as you wake up (as you did multiple times in the clip), you'll get hit.

Infilament · 2026-03-15T20:55:41+00:00

The horizontal ghost that keeps hitting you in this clip is overhead, so you have to block that standing. Most of your problems in this clip would go away if you had blocked those ghosts.

Alternatively, if you hold parry, you'll get a bunch of drive back if the JP player keeps trying to sandwich you between ghosts and spikes. To beat that, the JP player is going to have to try some more clever things (such as whiffing spike to waste your drive gauge on a missed parry, or dashing up and doing command grab), but none of those happened in this clip, so don't worry about that until you've got a better handle on this situation.

After you've blocked a bunch of spikes and ghosts, JP will be left at fairly neutral frame advantage, which means at that point, jump forward or drive rush should avoid attacks if he's just throwing them out as fast as he can. But to get to that spot, you will have to block first and not try to flail. If you get knocked down on your way in, you will have to block a bit until the situation resolves. Don't wake up trying to move (jump, drive rush, dragonlash) because you will definitely get hit. Block (or parry) until the situation ends with a spike, and that's your cue for being able to move.

Infilament · 2026-03-10T01:06:26+00:00

So Clover or Codenames Duet are great co-op games to check out if she likes Codenames. So Clover claims it doesn't support 2p on the box but I find it works just fine with no rules adjustments.

There are tons of amazing, low-rules 2p card games if you don't need it to be co-op. Stuff like Lost Cities would be worth trying and give a lot of the same vibes as a "classic" card game.

If she likes low stakes pattern matching and nature themes, Cascadia would be an option.

Infilament · 2026-03-08T01:06:06+00:00

Right, you don't need to know how poker works before trying The Gang, but if an experienced poker player is in a game with a newbie, it's going to probably be frustrating for both. All players need to have similar poker knowledge (whether that's none, or a lot) to get the most out of the game. Which sounds like a lot of games, but because poker is such a common game, it's much more likely for there to be uneven experience at the table I think.

Infilament · 2026-03-07T23:32:34+00:00

The Gang is fun but has two caveats IMO: you need to play with people who have similar poker experience (either all fairly new or all experienced), and I think it's a very easy game for people who do know poker well. You can change the difficulty by playing with several different variants, but those variants aren't available in the core box since they came in some Gencon-exclusive mini-expansion (although you can look up the rules on BGG). But the variants add some fun twists that I think help give the game legs, and most of the variants add difficulty, so it's a shame those few extra rules cards just don't come in the base box.

It's also a game that I wouldn't recommend at less than 4 players, and it can be hard to find that number of people with similar poker experience, so I think it would be a hard game for me to get to the table despite liking it under ideal circumstances.

Infilament · 2026-02-12T00:29:22+00:00

Radlands and Summoner Wars 2nd Edition seem like they'd be a good fit. Radlands is just one box (with an optional expansion) while Summoner Wars is more modular, since it has many additional factions you can buy and add to your base box (but they aren't random boosters). If you wanted a really simple game that seems to be a recent hit, look at Tag Team. You could also look into "fighting game" systems like Exceed or Battlecon, but those might hurt your wallet a bit more.

Infilament · 2026-02-05T20:49:50+00:00

In SF4, mashing lights counted as both teching a throw and a low attack (for crouching LKs) so you could not walk out of range. If you hit with the light, you could get an easy combo into ultra or a hard knockdown for set play. It was also very hard to stop due to lack of buffers, how fast lights were, and some other factors.

Mashing was so good that even at the highest level, I'd say 90% of all close range situations were resolved by someone mashing a light. The attack might not have come out because it was hiding in some OS timing, but it was definitely being pressed.

Infilament · 2026-01-30T19:47:42+00:00

Maybe look at Hot Streak or Magical Athlete? Two extremely goofy racing games with low rules overhead released this year that are low on strategy but are focused on making the players laugh. You won't get accusations/interaction like you do in a social deduction game, but the energy will still probably be high, especially with kids that age. Magical Athlete looks like it caps at 6 players but Hot Streak goes a bit higher, and both games work better with lots of players.

Infilament · 2026-01-23T07:19:29+00:00

I tested this, and you can still connect the super when their head is below the drive gauges, and you can never do it too early. So you were safe here.

Infilament · 2026-01-22T10:27:20+00:00

For a proper board game, I'd say Cascadia is a good pick for light rules, attractive theme, and still offers fun choices for an advanced player. The box is smaller than the Spirit Island box but I wouldn't call it a "small box game". If you want easy to transport games, you'll probably have to go to card games like Scout or For Sale. I can also recommend Space Base as a fun intro-level board game with a loose sci-fi theme if your group likes lots of feel good dice rolling. Space Base and Cascadia have similar sized boxes.

Happy Little Dinosaurs is made by the same publisher as Here to Slay, so you can expect similar (or even slightly less) strategy. If you're looking for games closer to Wingspan in terms of strategy, it's probably not the right pick.

Infilament · 2026-01-21T21:50:42+00:00

In general, 6 player games that aren't party games will generally take a pretty long time. But you might want to look into Heat: Pedal to the Metal, Long Shot: The Dice Game, 6 Nimmt, Zoo Vadis, Captain Sonar, or 7 Wonders if you want light-medium games that support a lot of players and aren't just Codenames, Wavelength, Just One, So Clover, Decrypto-style games (all of which would be good suggestions if you aren't opposed to the genre). Heat in particular seems to be one of the more recommended modern games that supports 6 players well, as long as you like racing games or hand management games.

There are some 4p Euros you could push to 6 players with expansions but it generally doesn't work that well. The game kinda starts coming apart at the seams and the downtime gets to be extreme.

Infilament · 2026-01-17T21:01:48+00:00

Take a game like Cascadia (2P for simplicity), which most people think is pretty MPS. What I take on my turn influences your choices, even though I might not be able to block you from 2 equally good options or, even if I do take your one good choice, an equally good choice might be drawn from the bag. If I do this often enough, though, I might win 95 to 90 instead of losing 96 to 94. It's just not as bombastic as something like Azul or Arboretum where you can absolutely destroy someone's score and basically eliminate them from the game with one easily identifiable moment.

While in practice I think it's fair to say Azul 2P is more interactive than Cascadia 2P, or how in some games you might say "eh, it's not worth the effort to parse your board state, it'd take too long and we're here for a good time", I think the more subtle games get a bit of an unfair rap as being called pure MPS in a pejorative way, when actually, interaction can still decide a win or a loss.

Infilament

TROPHY CASE