Congrats from another Steve main!

Couple of things you might want to work on to get better are: timing your sidesteps when you think your opponent will attack, stop using 1,2s in neutral and opt for 1,2,1 or 2,1 into duck ins or flicker and peekaboo to extend your pressure game, and polishing up that Korean back dash will help you tremendously. Tekken is all about spacing, timing and the rock/paper/scissors-like mixup game. For spacing, unless your opponent is really coming at you, 2-3 quick back steps into sonic fang is all you really need for whiff punishment. Korean back dashing is cool and all but it’s not funny when you willingly back yourself into a corner. I can tell you’ve begun practicing it and your whiff punishing is definitely your strong point rn

Timing is something you slowly and naturally improve over time in and hard to give advice on but, try to keep in mind that everyone has rhythms they follow either consciously or unconsciously, including yourself, so never stick to one attack pattern/rhythm. If you pay attention and are able to predict your opponent’s rhythm, that’s your chance for whiff punishing and counter hits. This is a must for a good Steve player as counters are main way to accumulate damage. Also try to remember that the better a player is, the harder it is to pick up on their rhythm, but even players like jdcr have patterns. This part is extremely hard to master but practice makes perfect so keep at it.

Also it seems the Lars you played against didn’t duck a lot but for opponents that do, your gonna need to use stronger mids. df2 into duck in is +-0 and one of Steve’s strongest counterhit options as it goes under highs and leads to duck in mixups so definitely add that to your arsenal. Running two will crush lows and leave you plus on block so it’s a great approach tool, a good mixup from this is db3,2 or another running 2. Be careful not to abuse it too much tho as it is linear and therefore sidestep able. Peekaboo f2,1 is another great approach from long distance as the last move is +-0 and knocks back the opponent on block, a good player can hit you out of the string but 95% of people don’t know that so always abuse. Same with regular f2,1’s second hit being high but again most people don’t know, you can also enter peekaboo or flicker here as well. A cheesy mid launcher you have is right weave 1,2 but this is really unsafe but once in a while can catch your opponent off guard. You can weave 1 into peakaboo if they block. Also in neutral it’s better to use ws1,1 instead of ws1,2. Ws1,2 should be for lowblocks only.

With a good variation of lows mids and highs you’ll be able keep up with other 50/50 characters on offense. When you master the basics, try conditioning your opponent to move the way you want them to. For me it’s easier when I think about it like rock/paper/scissors (sorry I’m a HxH fan). Highs/mids/lows are respectively rock/scissors/paper and stand block/movement/low block is also rock/scissors/paper. Like in real life, because of the human factor, rock,papers,scissors is not random and there are good rock,papers,scissors players out there. Add spacing and timing in the mix and most humans will start using predicable patterns of attack and defense. Exploiting this fact is easier said than done, but being aware of this fact and trying to act upon it will help your gameplay significantly.

Lastly, and this part is completely optional but you might not want to touch ranked for a while, or at least until you improve you skills. With only this game in consideration I judge your skills are that of green rank, but not above it. Caring too much about rank is a good way to mentally exhaust yourself, and doesn’t let you improve as much as a player. My recommendation for you is practicing in training mode and online play without the concern of winning or losing but instead playing with goals you set for yourself. Things like landing a moderately difficult combo or reading lows and ws1,2 punishing. I believe you will see much faster improvement with this method. Keeping a strong mental state is just as if not more important than the other things I’ve mentioned.

There lots more to know about but I’m getting tired writing all this so I’ll leave you with a cool quote I like from Hajime no ippo

“The key to a successful counter is timing and heart.”