« Basic Tips for Dealing with the Blanka Menace »

With the release of Super Street Fighter 4, there are a lot of new players out there.  There are also many players who are trying out new characters.  This is Blanka's time to shine, as he is really his most effective when the opponent doesn't know how to deal with his tricks.  Of course, this makes him one of the most annoying matchups when you are fighting against him.

In this article you'll find tips for dealing with some of the more common situations you'll find yourself in during a Blanka matchup.

The tips are also pretty much universal as well and should work regardless of character.  The only things that will be character specific would be your ability to punish Blanka after you've dealt with his attack. 

These tips also work for both Street Fighter 4 and Super Street Fighter 4.

This article is meant for players who are of beginner to intermediate level of skill.

If you have anything that you feel should be added to this article or a correction needs to be made, (regarding the situations in this article, further articles are planned for other situations), feel free to hit the comments. If we incorporate it into the article we will add your name to the article as a contributor.

Avoid the match-opening whiffed Blanka Ball into Bite Trick: 

The match begins. Blanka immediately uses a Rolling Attack. You block on instinct. Instead of hitting, he lands right in front of you and bites you in the face. Sucker!

This is an old trick which still works on a lot of people.  When the match first begins, Blanka players will sometimes use a Light Punch Blanka Ball right as the action gets underway.  Assuming that the opponent doesn’t move, the Blanka Ball will whiff and Blanka will land right in front of you.  Before you can react, Blanka will then grab you and bite your face, which results in hurt pride, good damage, and a knockdown (which any good Blanka thrives on).  The reason it still works is that the first instinct of players not actively anticipating the trick is to block. Blocking holds you in place, which is exactly what Blanka wants. 

Tips:

Like pretty much anything Blanka does, this trick relies on surprise to work.  At the beginning of a round, always expect it and have a plan, and there are several ways to thwart the trick.  The first is to mess up the spacing. If you move forward just a bit at the beginning of the round prior to blocking, the Blanka Ball will actually hit instead of whiffing. This does little damage and gives you an opportunity to punish. Moving backward at the beginning of the round either normally (if Blanka is slow at throwing out the attack at the beginning of the round) or by back-dashing puts you too far away for Blanka to get the throw. Throwing out an attack that interrupts the move (like throwing out Jabs if your character has fast Light Punch) or throwing out a move that actually beats the Blanka Ball in-flight (such as a Shoryuken) also not only gets you out of the trick but puts you in the advantage.

Dealing with Blanka’s Slide: 

Blanka’s Amazon River Run (Slide) can be very annoying to opponents.  It has pretty good range and starts up fairly quickly. 

Tips: 

If Blanka uses slide at medium to long range, you have plenty of time to Focus Attack.Like many of Blanka’s moves, it is unsafe on block.  In this case, the slide has a ton of recovery time.  A good Blanka will only throw out the move either at max range (so that only Blanka’s fingertips hit the opponent), which reduces the opposing player’s time to react, or use it in a situation where the opponent is already in the middle of a move which doesn’t beat the slide such as a fireball.

One tip is to not throw out fireballs at a range where Blanka can have time to react with a slide. 

If the Blanka throws out unsafe slides (not using it as a counter to a move or not using it at max range) you can simply block it and then punish.  If this thing is blocked, you have what seems like an eternity to hit him back hard with a move or combo. 

Another method to use against the slide at any range (if Blanka just throws it out and you are not in the middle of another move) is to use Focus Attack.  Once you see Blanka slide, hit Focus Attack and charge it until the slide hits you.  The slide only does one hit so Focus Attack will absorb the hit.  If the slide wasn’t max range you then have a long window to unleash the Focus Attack while the slide is in recovery (make sure Blanka is actually getting up from the slide to initiate the Focus Attack, as it will whiff if he's still on the ground).  If the slide was used at max range and you feel like you can’t hit with the Focus Attack, just hold the Focus Attack until the slide does its hit and then dash-cancel the Focus Attack backwards to put you out of harm’s way.

If Blanka has even one EX Bar, Don’t Do Unsafe Projectiles: 

Blanka’s EX Rolling Attack (Ball) can go through projectiles (such as Fireballs, Cody's Rocks and Knife Throw, etc) and hit the opponent as they recover from throwing it out. 

Tips:

If Blanka has an EX stock, only use a projectile if you have enough time to recover.The tip here is to not throw out a projectile at a range where you cannot recover from it in time to deal with an EX Blanka Ball.  You have to experiment with the max range you can do this, but it is around full-screen for many characters (some characters recover from throwing projectiles at different speeds).  If you throw the move at a long enough range where you have time to recover, even if he EX Blanka Balls through the projectile you can have time to either block the attack or punish it.  In fact, a good tactic I’ve seen many intermediate to advanced players use on Blanka is to throw out a long range projectile to bait an EX Blanka Ball reaction. The EX Blanka Ball goes all the way across the screen so you have plenty of time to either use a move which beats it out or just time a jump-back regular move that beats it out (jump-back Heavy Kick/Roundhouse usually beats it out if timed properly for many characters). 

You can also throw out a standing Jab to try to bait the EX Blanka Ball instead of committing to anything that may get you punished. Many times, if the Blanka player sees any type of movement, they will throw out an EX Blanka Ball. Certain moves such as Sagat's Crouching Heavy Punch actually look like the start up of a Low Tiger Shot, so you can use attacks such as these to trick the Blanka player into burning their EX meter.

Dealing with EX Rainbow Ball: 

Blanka’s normal Rainbow Rolling Attack is usually pretty easy to deal with, as it is fairly slow in the air and its trajectory is set.  You just block the right direction and then take the next second or two to think about the many ways you can beat on him when he finally lands.  The EX Rainbow Ball is a different story.  It is much faster than the regular version and, to make it even more annoying, the Blanka player can direct its flight path, making it like a Blanka guided missile!  Good Blanka players usually use this to get out of corners fast.  If the Blanka player tries to use this to actually hit you, he tries to guide it in such as way that it is very hard to tell which way to block.  This is where the annoyance comes in.

Tips:

Use your Focus Attack.  The Rainbow Ball is not an armor breaking move, even the EX version (unless it is used as a reversal).  This means that as Blanka comes down toward you, you can charge your Focus Attack, let the Rainbow Ball hit you (if you are using Focus Attack, you don’t need to worry about direction) and then you can Dash Cancel out of it.  Your options and ability to punish as a follow-up to this depend entirely on your character. However, this does get you out of taking the damage.

COUNTERING BLANKA ELECTRICITY

A properly spaced crouching Roundhouse is the easy way to take down Blanka's voltage.

Many newer players probably wonder how you can knock Blanka out of his Electricity. 

Tips:

While there are other methods which are character specific, the easy method is to use a crouching Roundhouse to sweep him out of it.  You should do this toward the maximum range of the move.  If you are too close, you will be hit by electricity.  If he is spamming the electricity and you are too close you obviously can't just push back in order to back up to sweep (you will be put into blocking mode) so use a backward dash to get some space then knock that green lightning rod on his butt.

Also, Blanka's electricity does have some startup so if you hit him as he is trying to get the electricity started you can knock him out of it with pretty much any move which is faster than the startup of the electricity or which is properly timed to hit before it can get fully sparking.