Much more-so than my Ippatsuman play, my Saki gameplay still evolves a lot from month to month. This is because with Ippatsuman, the goal is clear: land those devastating combos. You find new ways to do so and get better on your execution and such, but the general gameplay stays similar. Saki is a zoning/keep-away character. With her, I have different goals at different times.

Goal #1: Stay the f*$# away from me! This is the basis of 90%++ of Sakis’ game out there and is usually mine as well. She easily has the best projectiles in the game and you can very nicely chip away at someone’s life, while keeping them too far away to do anything about it. The main two ways I do this are: 1 Jump-forward, C-shot, cancel into grenade. This is an awesome maneuver because it owns pretty much the entire ground level horizontally. It’s very difficult for opponents to jump over the C-shot and attack you, because usually they’ll end up catching the grenade in the face. If the C-shot does connect, then the grenade will also. I’ll also throw Ippatsuman out there every once in a while, just to further own the entire ground level. 2 Super jump, C, grenade, double-jump, C, grenade, C. I usually don’t do this too often because it kinda pushes my faith in all’s fair, but it’s a great technique that a LOT of Sakis use. Unfortunately, almost all Saki vs Saki matches immediately degenerate into this, both sides jockeying for position. All that aside, this is a great method and switching up between 1 and 2 is enough to make players want to throw their controllers through the tv. The only downside is that (surprisingly to me), I often miss either the cancel into grenade or the double-jump(for method 2). This is usually not a huge problem, but it would be really nice to tighten it up.

Goal #2: Toss the opponent around like a ragdoll! By which I mean, load up her unblockable super armor piercing shell. Hit the opponent with it and combo into the positron storm. This is, of course, not always an option as it requires 2 hyper meters, plus at least enough time to load the ammo. Last, but not least, you need to land the hit, which isn’t always easy (opponents tend to take note of a glowing rifle the size of a large child). Landing the hit can be achieved in different ways, but there are mainly 2: 1 Combo into it. Ideal since you can hit-confirm before departing with your precious ammo. The downside is that Saki is not exactly known for her melee fighting and it’s not always easy to start that combo. 2 After one character dies, the second one is a freebie on entry. Or at least it should be. I miss the opportunity too often, but I still connect more often than not and 2 back-to-back hypers on the only living character is a fantastic way to gain/keep the momentum.

Goal #3: Rush down! This is something I’ve really just started doing lately. I think all Saki players would like to be able to rush down with her, if for no other reason than so no one can call them turtles. Being TvC, the backbone of a good rushdown is the combos you can achieve from it. In Saki’s case, she gets:

Without meter: 2A,2B,3C, jump, B,B, doublejump, B, B, grenade
With meter: 2A, 2B, 3C, Positron Storm
With loaded armor piercing: Same as w/o meter, but land the unblockable while opponent falls away from the grenade(RESET!), follow up with positron storm if the meter is there
All of these combos can be slightly modified/extended
Videos linked are approximations of what I’m doing

Without meter, this is pretty so-so. With unblockable loaded, this is incredible. With meter falls somewhere in the middle. Although, perhaps the largest benefit to a Saki rushdown is just for the opponent to know it’s there. You change the game from Saki wins if she keeps you out, loses if you get in to Saki wins if she keeps you out, maybe wins anyway. Suddenly, an opponent needs to be constantly on guard, she may just dash at you.

That’s mostly it. Not that that’s every single trick up my sleeve, but these are the major tenants of my Saki gameplay. For a long time I focused mainly on Ippatsuman, while I kept my Saki game as more autopilot zoning, but she really has a ton to offer and I’m excited about improving my rushdown game. The major things I need to do at this point are, as always, to improve execution. I need to be able to cancel C-shots into grenades more consistently and to stop missing double-jumps. I’m still far from good at her combos, but they’re coming along and they really expand her options. Also, I’d like to never miss hitting surviving characters on the jump-in. Switching off between Saki and Ippatsuman via variable air raids is an extremely interesting proposition from both directions, but honestly I’m not ready to dive into that yet.