Rufus Knowledge

Here's some interesting things that will help you beat Rufus. Rufus players love to use the messiah kick especially the EX version cause of it's invincibility. After the messiah kick, Rufus has a mixup game by pressing short/forward/rh(DP/low/high). After a messiah kick, if rufus thinks you're going to counter the followup with a DP, he will press short kick for his own "DP" and it will trade with yours. If you try to counter his forward/rh followup with a DP you will win. But the problem is his short kick followup will trade. So how do you beat all 3 followups to the messiah kick?

Here's the secret. If he does an EX messiah kick, block the initial hit then immediately hold uf(or up). If he does the short kick followup, it will autoblock even though you were holding uf. If he does the forward/rh followup, you will jump over this followup, allowing you to punish him when you land. So you might think, cool I can counter the regular messiah kick with the same technique. You would be wrong. If he does a regular messiah kick then does the short kick followup, he will hit you when you jump uf. You won't autoblock the short kick followup. So if he does a regular messiah kick, just block the initial kick, then EX DP his followup. An EX DP will beat all 3 followups. A regular DP will beat his forward/rh followup and trade hits with the short followup.

Now what if the Rufus player doesn't do any followup and just blocks? Your DP will still hit him because the short/forward/rh messiah kicks have -9/-12/-6 frame advantage on block.

So all you have to remember is EX messiah kick = hold uf and regular messiah kick = EX DP.