SSBU/Ken/Strategy

Neutral
Ken wants to play grounded footsies focused on bait and punish. Ken should play right at the edge of the opponent’s burst range to then bait the opponent to approach and react to their approach with the appropriate attack to counter them. This includes aerials and to counter full hops,, , and  to counter short hops, and the use of Ken’s fast walk and back dash to make grounded approaches or careless jump-ins whiff. This sets up Ken’s positional pressure. Positional pressure is the pressure Ken puts on the opponent just by being in their burst range or in control of center stage. Properly applying positional pressure will make the opponent fear Ken and his ability to pump out lots of damage and early kills. This will in turn make them act rashly in an attempt to take back control of the game. This is where Ken will punish the opponent’s attempts for control and push his oppressive advantage state. To call out the opponent Ken is able to use his jump-in aerials or dash in tilts. When the opponent plays defensive, Ken has a few tools to quickly advance towards the opponent as well. For example, he can use, , pivot , or dash walk to whiff punish options that are considered safe. Ken does not want to play at long range. To move into mid range it is best to use a slow hover then run in behind it. Ken does not really have a good gameplan for platforms in neutral. He has the standard falling into short hop  for pressure from underneath. If he can jump onto the platforms he can do full hop then potentially keep up the shield pressure with tilts but it isn’t exactly safe. He can also special cancel the into medium  to catch OOS options. Outside of pressure, Ken does not want to be on platforms due to his platform drop animation being 3 frames slower than the rest of the cast. Platforms can help with advantage state as they lead to ladder combos and more deadlier tech chases.

On Shield
If Ken hits a shield he is able to apply shield pressure with the use of his fast tilts and special cancels into his block strings or frame traps. Ken should prioritize trying to catch the opponent trying to escape pressure. Only once the opponent is conditioned to hold shield should he go for shield breaks, in which he can get very easily. Shield break block strings and frame traps can be found here: Made by Lernonad: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1zYikwiHCF-ZjJDPY9d1lxCYYzDW8XlFWJjefsT56XHU/edit?usp=sharing Ken can also go for tick throws to gain stage control. This is done by hitting the opponent’s shield then grabbing them.

Out of Shield
Out of Shield Ken has a frame 5 heavy for an easy, strong punish, frame 9  that can be auto-turned by delaying it at least one frame for a slower but safer punish, frame 9  and  frame 10  jump callouts, frame 13 shield release auto-turn  which is good against close range, unsafe attacks, frame 14 auto-turn  which is good against opponents who tend to jump after hitting an attack on shield, and frame 16 auto-turn  which is good against opponents who try to space tilts on shield. Ken can also jump to try and land an aerial to try and call out defense after the opponent’s pressure.

Out of Parry
Out of parry Ken can do whatever he wants. Ken can use light tilts against safe moves on parry, or  against spaced attacks on parry. If Ken gets a proper parry punish, he can get a full combo off.

Disadvantage
On hit Ken has frame 1 heavy armor with, but it gets beat by multihits. Ken has a frame 3 air dodge. When being juggled Ken can use B-reverse to change momentum then dash cancel to change momentum again. When launched off stage Ken has and  to stall his recovery and  can be used to help get Ken out of being edge guarded or to get him closer to the ledge. If Ken is launched far off stage, can be used to help Ken model shift away from the blast zone, but it should not be used to go to the ledge because of its slow speed and very high end lag. Ken’s does not snap to ledge but He has 3 different versions that go different heights to help with that. can be used to shark the ledge but it can be two-framed and it will trigger counters. Using input can prevent being 2-framed while sharking because of the arm intangibility. And if the opponent ever goes off stage to try and counter Ken’s, Ken can use to trigger the counter then special cancel into  to then use its intangibility to go through the actual attack. Below is a list of counters that Ken and Ryu’s go through. Although it is inferring to when done on the ground, it also applies to when done in the air.

Made by Lernonad:

Stages
Ordered from best at the top to worst at the bottom.

{{TheoryBox These stages aren't necessarily bad but should be avoided due to some minor disadvantage or because the opponent is really comfortable on the stage.
 * Title     = Good Stage Picks
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 * Difficulty = {{clr|smash|Avoid}}
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Pokemon Stadium 1 has a much larger stage size than the rest of the stage list. This can make camping Ken easier. The platforms are low enough for Ken to full hop onto allowing for better combos but also protection from above for the opponent to sit under them.



Only significant difference PS2 has from PS1 is the platform heights. PS2’s platforms are higher so Ken cannot full hop onto them. He must double jump.



Like Northern Cavern the platforms are in a position where they don’t affect neutral but can help in disadvantage. Only problem is that Ken cannot full hop onto them and must resort to double jumps to get on them. The blast zones being larger don’t really matter a lot because they are mostly uniformly larger. So, while all his kill moves kill later, so do everyone else's.



Battlefield has the highest ceiling along with Kalos and platforms that are all close together. The platforms make being juggled hurt a lot more, but gives Ken better ladder combos allowing him to get really close to the top platform.

Fighting Ken
Ken has good ground mobility. His air mobility, although fast, is lacking in acceleration. This means that he cannot use air drift like many other characters can. His aerials are not disjointed. So against a jump-happy Ken, it is very easy to anti-air him. His tools on shield look safe but can be escaped before he starts his block strings by rolling out of them. Tilt mash on shield is not safe against anything frame 4 or faster. And after a few tilts, once it is staled, frame 5 or faster will beat it as well. Try not to spotdodge them though because tilt mash will catch the end lag of the spotdodge. Auto turn around can be a pain but that’s not the real problem people have. The problem they have is the tilt mash in neutral. Ken does a landing aerial into mashing tilts and the opponent rolls through Ken’s first move and gets caught by the tilt spam. Or he is mashing on shield and they roll behind Ken and he catches them with tilts. The most simple counterplay is to not roll behind Ken. The more effective counterplay is to actually counter the tilts he is mashing. Ken is still in lag and if he is mashing then the best option would be to hit him from above, with an aerial. If he is mashing then the best option would be to hit him from below with a DTilt. has less range than so the opponent can roll behind Ken to get out. And they are also less safe on shield than, so after a few tilts they become stale and easier to escape from. Just be sure to get out after 2-3. Furthermore, when doing an aerial on Ken’s shield with the intent to cross-up, make sure the aerial is safe on shield, so that Ken can’t punish you with an auto turn attack OOS or a b-reverse. is slow and has heavy armor that goes away after Ken is hit. That means that the opponent can hit him again to break the armor and to launch Ken. And, if he tries it on the ground, it does lose to grabs. On shield it is safe and if fully charged it is unblockable, so it is best to roll away from, but do not roll in as Ken can change the direction of the attack. When Ken is offstage be ready to edge guard his back to stage. Otherwise, be ready to two-frame with a disjoint.