This post will be fairly short, as it doesn't concern mechanics or character specific tactics. For players who have the basics down and are trying to learn more advanced tactics, it often helps to know which players are considered to be elite with each character, as they can go find footage of these players and see what high level play with those characters looks like - mixups, spacing, etc.
In the table below, I've provided 1-3 players who are widely considered to be among the best at their respective characters. Some notes about this table:
In the table below, I've provided 1-3 players who are widely considered to be among the best at their respective characters. Some notes about this table:
- This is no way intended to be a comprehensive list. Just with Yun alone, there are at least 7-8 famous, world-class players - K.O., Mester, Ochibi, Nitto, Yakkun, Boss, Momochi, Matsuda, etc...and that's just with a few seconds of thought. All of them are worth watching, I just don't want the list to get unwieldy or out of hand.
- The players aren't arranged in any particular order either - "Player #1" isn't necessarily stronger than "Player #2", they're totally randomly arranged. This isn't a "top 3" list either - there may be other players with that character who others would consider stronger or more worthwhile watching.
- The list is somewhat biased towards players who are active today, since it will most likely be easier to find footage of such players, both at present and in the future. There are still some older "retired" players on the list though, either because very few people play that character at an exceptional level, or because they were sufficiently well-known during their active period to be worth mentioning now.
- This is list also biased towards characters that players used competitively today - for example K.O. has a very famous Yun and used to use him in competitive play very frequently until 2005/2006, but nowadays he mostly plays Yang, so I put him down for Yang and put down other players for Yun. Same goes for other famous older character/player combos like Boss/Yang, Tokido/Urien, etc. Of course, if you see a video with K.O. Yun or Boss Yang it's a safe bet that it's worth watching anyways.
- If in doubt, Kuroda is a safe bet for virtually any character. He released DVDs of himself playing every character, so if you can find footage from them or get a hold of them, then they're pretty much guaranteed to be worth it. I didn't list Kuroda aside from Q because I didn't want this list to just be peppered with his name on the majority of the characters.
- For the characters with only 1 player listed (Remy, Twelve), there is 1 player who outdistances the rest of the competition by such an enormous margin. In addition, they're both low-tier, fairly underplayed characters, and I don't know who else to put (I'm happy to take suggestions). I didn't include Sean because there are no notable Sean players AFAIK. He's pretty much a shittier version of the other shotos in every respect, so you could just go watch a good Ryu or Ken player and have a pretty good handle on how to play Sean as well.
Also, a tip for beginners watching videos of these players in the hopes of getting better: don't get hung up on the flashy stuff. Yes, it's really cool when MOV breaks out some insane lightning legs setup, or Hayao does a standing Gigas, but these things are only a tiny part of the reason these players win so frequently. Focus on more fundamental things like spacing, rushdown mixups, defense/okizeme, etc. You can spend all week trying to master a true kara/Jiro demon, but you'll just get stomped before you even reach 2 meters if your fundamentals aren't solid, and a demon by itself only does ~40% damage, so it won't win you a round or a match single handedly. Same goes for kara palms, double-fukiage 100% stuns (although these do win games single-handedly), and other flashy, tricky stuff in the same vein.
Happy viewing!