Ibuki traveled into hell and learned how to do new cancels!
Ibuki is a rushdown character, who uses her solid mobility and command dashes to get in, then her variety of mixup based specials, target combos, universally jump cancellable normals, and resets to mix the opponent up.
Ibuki wants one thing: to get in close and pressure the opponent. Her ability to jump cancel every normal, her strong command grab, a variety of target combos and chains with various different mixups built in, Ibuki has a wide variety of options to represent on offense at any given time. This is doubled by arguably her most defining special, 236K Command Dash, which can be cancelled into from nearly everything in Ibuki's kit. Normals, specials, even her 236PPP super can cancel to these command dashes. The followups let her do some unique pressure and mindgames afterwards, and EX Command Dash gives her a shorthop out of it, allowing for extremely fast overheads and crossups.
While her goal is to be in close range, Ibuki is far from lacking in neutral. Her normals are fast, have good hitboxes, and reach shockingly far into very safe buffers. Her mediums, especially 5MK and 2MK, let her play footsies with even some of the more powerful neutral characters. She also isn't lacking in anti-airs thanks to 4MP and 2HP, and her invincible 623K DPs that can lead into combos at high enough connects. Her j.236P Air Kunai also make for solid projectiles for some zoning potential, and she can even fake them out with j.236K which allows her to fall with an air normal.
Her main struggles are on defense. While her DP isn't bad, it's extremely standard, which can be rough in a game like Remix where DPs are often a characters easiest route to winning. Her unique Alpha Counter also comes into play here. Where most Alpha Counters are simple strikes, Ibuki's is a command dash. This functions like a GC Roll from KOF, where it allows her to quickly get behind the opponent. This opens up some new punishes, but generally makes her AC weaker than every other characters, which can hurt when AC is such a key part of defense in Remix. Her low health can excacerbate this, as one good hit from an opponent will delete a huge chunk of her health.
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Weaknesses
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- Offense: Ibuki has about every option you could want on offense in Remix. Jump cancels, safe enders, strong pressure resets, a chainable plus on block overhead that can be feinted or combo'd from, an amazing crossup, strong resets, and a real command grab that also leads to combos. This also meshes with her variety of target combos, which have frametraps and hitconfirms built in, making it quite dangerous to get hit by her.
- Neutral: Ibuki has strong normals, anti-airs, and a decent projectile. While rushdown is ultimately the name of her game, good neutral takes you just as far, and is arguably the defining savior for her in matchups vs the top tiers, who have unbelievable reversals and neutral tools.
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- Defense: While Ibuki isn't necessarily lost on defense, she's definitely not keeping up with the stronger characters. A standard DP that can't be CC'd while grounded in any context, a fairly underwhelming backdash, and an unusual alpha counter make defense with Ibuki much more difficult than say, Gen or Hugo.
- Health: At a pitiful 900 health, Ibuki is only 50 points above the lowest health bracket. In a game where meterless combos easily break 400 and metered combos can taper off around 700, Ibuki is prone to dying fast, especially against the ridiculously high damage top tiers.
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